PETA had hoped to place its brand-new billboard–showing a middle-aged couple next to the tagline "Meat Causes Cancer … Go Vegetarian"–in Southern Pines in time for the North Carolina Meat Processors Association Conference next week, but it was rejected by the area’s outdoor advertising company.

Studies published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, the International Journal of Cancer, the American Journal of Epidemiology, and many other medical periodicals provide evidence that eating meat increases a person’s risk of developing cancer and that a diet based on grains, fruits, and vegetables significantly decreases that risk.

"It’s a lot easier–and cheaper–to prevent cancer than to treat it, simply by adopting a healthy, humane, vegetarian diet," says PETA’s Vegan Campaign Director Bruce Friedrich. "Within 10 years, meat moguls will be in the dock, just as tobacco executives were a few years ago."