While the COVID-19 pandemic and related changes in consumer behavior have hit some industries hard, streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Apple TV have actually benefitted as people look for at-home entertainment. Unfortunately for the meat community and animal agriculture, there is an overabundance of content with negative messages about meat consumption on these platforms as “documentaries” that are light on the science and heavy on dramatic claims about animal agriculture’s alleged negative impacts on animal welfare, human health and the planet that have long been a favored tactic of activist groups. Two new films of this nature are currently underway that we all need to look out for: “They’re Trying to Kill Us” and “The End of Medicine.”

These films are both coming from Keegan Kuhn, the filmmaker that brought us “Cowspiracy” and “What the Health,” two Netflix films loaded with misinformation about animal agriculture and meat consumption. These films include claims such as animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the transportation sector and that eating one egg is equivalent to smoking five cigarettes. We can certainly expect more of the same from the two new projects.

“They’re Trying to Kill Us” is described as “a revealing documentary about the intersections of food injustice, nutritional and environmental racism.” Director John Lewis is vegan, and in a promotional interview for the film stated “while a lot of documentaries talk about the cancers, the strokes, hypertension and the lists goes on into eating animal protein, a lot of times we don’t talk about the social justice impact, the way these workers are treated when they are cutting and killing these animals.”

Lewis also referenced “pandemic side of [animal agriculture], the COVID-19s, the swine flu, the bird flu,” stating, “all these things originated from animal agriculture. Between the corrupt government, police brutality, we talk about this whole system to not make us succeed.” “They’re Trying to Kill Us” is currently in production to be released later this year.

“The End of Medicine” will focus more specifically on animal agriculture and public health, and with vocal animal rights activist Joaquin Phoenix at the helm as an executive producer we can anticipate it will be negative and claim that animal agriculture is to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. In a joint statement with co-producer Rooney Mara, Phoenix stated, “We hope that The End of Medicine is an eye-opening call to action and ignites a spark of willingness to change our habits. The science is irrefutable. Modern animal agriculture will continue to make us sick if we don’t radically change our patterns of consumption.” Production of this film is set to conclude by the end of 2020, so it will likely be released early next year.

Unfortunately, these films will probably gain a lot of notoriety given their controversial subject matter. The meat community should be prepared to debunk their claims once they are released and should continue to focus on sharing positive, factual content that addresses any questions or concerns our consumers have.

More anti-meat documentaries slated for the small screen

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