PETA Apologizes to Giuliani for Ad

N E W   Y O R K, Sept. 1 -- A national animal rights group today apologized to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and withdrew an anti-milk billboard campaign over which the mayor had threatened to sue.

Giuliani, who has prostate cancer, said earlier this week he was considering suing People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) over the advertisement that depicted the mayor with a milk mustache next to the caption: “Got Prostate Cancer? Drinking milk contributes to prostate cancer.”

The ad was a parody of the dairy industry’s “Got Milk?”campaign.

“We hope you will accept our apology for any distress thatPETA’s billboard campaign may have caused you,” said PETAPresident Ingrid Newkirk in a letter to Giuliani that announcedthe group was withdrawing the campaign.

“The effort was not intended as an attack on you, and we’resorry it was taken that way.”

A spokeswoman for the mayor’s office said that to the bestof her knowledge the mayor had not received or seen the letter.

PETA did not receive Giuliani’s permission to use his imagefor the advertising campaign. In fact, the famously combativemayor has gone out of his way recently to extol the virtues ofdrinking milk, which PETA claims raises the risk of gettingprostate cancer.

According to The American Cancer Society, it is not completely understood what causes prostate cancer, which kills thousands of men in the United States each year, but the risk increases in men who eat a lot of fatty foods and not enoughfruits and vegetables.

Litigation Threats

PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich told Reuters the mayor’sthreat of a lawsuit was not behind the apology.

“I think if Mayor Giuliani felt he had a case, he wouldhave announced a lawsuit by now,” Friedrich said. “In realityit had nothing to do with a lawsuit.”

On Monday PETA threatened to sue a Wisconsin advertisingcompany for removing the billboards without its permission.