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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal rights organization, wrote in its article "Got Pus?," published on the Milk Sucks website (accessed Dec. 27, 2007):

“The dairy industry knows that there is a problem with pus in milk. Accordingly, it has developed a system known as the ‘somatic cell count’ to measure the amount of pus in milk. The somatic cell count is the standard used to gauge milk quality. The higher the somatic cell count, the more pus in the milk…

Dairy farmers don’t tell consumers that every glass of milk is contaminated with pus, bacteria, and perhaps with paratuberculosis [a bacterium that causes Johne’s disease (a chronic intestinal disease) in cows]. The only way to avoid drinking pus is to avoid cow’s milk.

PETA is calling on the USDA [United States Department of Agriculture] to lower the legal limit of allowable pus cells in milk to the limit used by the rest of the industrialized world. Presently, our limit is nearly twice that. Seventeen states are producing milk that would be illegal to sell in Europe!”

[Editor’s Note: In November of 2007 the California Milk Processors Board threatened suit against PETA for its “Got Pus?” parody. The lawsuit did not get filed and PETA did not stop its “Got Pus?” campaign.] Dec. 27, 2007