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Putting Animals over Babies, PETA Pushes Dangerous Vegan Diet for Young Children

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Humans are omnivores and our young need the nutrients readily supplied by meat and other animal-based products, which are among our natural foods. That’s why veganism can be dangerous to very young children.

But animal rights fanatics still push the “meat is murder” line, across the board. And sometimes young children get hurt. From the story in the Telegraph:

The vegan parents of an 11-month-old Italian baby are under investigation after their son was rushed to hospital suffering severe malnutrition. The couple, who live on the outskirts of the Tuscan city of Pisa, could face charges of abuse over their child, who was taken to Cisanello Hospital in a critical condition.

Doctors said the baby was severely malnourished and showed signs of deficiency in vitamin B12, which is found in foods including fish, meat, eggs, and milk. “He could neither crawl nor sit himself up,” said Giovanni Federico, a paediatrician at the hospital. The baby’s parents, who are in their early thirties, follow a vegan diet and do not eat meat, eggs, or dairy products.

Mr Federico said the baby’s parents had put him on a vegan diet once he began to eat solid foods.

This isn’t the first such case I have heard about — and animal rights groups such as PETA bear a degree of responsibility. In fact, some children have died from being forced onto a vegan diet.

PETA’s education efforts put animals over babies. The group often fails to warn believers that depriving their very young children of animal-supplied nutrients can cause substantial harm to health. For example, this pitch from the PETA website pushing believers to keep their infants vegan:

MILK

Doctors recommend breastfeeding infants, and yep, breast milk is vegan. If you can’t breastfeed or choose not to, you can try to score breast milk from a vegan donor by going through an approved milk bank, or you can go the soy formula route. The vitamins in soy formula may contain trace amounts of animal products, but you can check with the manufacturer and decide what is best for your family. Please be sure to read PETA’s stance on trace amounts of animal products.

FOOD

A baby’s first foods are typically fruits, veggies, and rice cereal — all of which are naturally vegan. Once your baby is ready for small pieces of food instead of having everything pureed, you can introduce proteins such as tofu, tempeh, and soft cooked beans, and there’s no need for meat! Just remember to feed your baby, vegan or not, a wide variety of foods and a balanced diet.

Vegan diets have to be very well planned in adults. Supplements are essential. Yet there are no warnings in the article about the potential dangers of depriving children of animal-based nutrients.

I know of one case in which a baby died because her vegan mother’s breast milk contained too few nutrients. Veganism imposed on infant nutrition is dangerous.

PETA and animal rights ideologues care more about “the animals” than they do about babies. What other conclusion can we draw?

Image: � Alliance / Dollar Photo Club.

Cross-posted at Human Exceptionalism.

Wesley J. Smith

Chair and Senior Fellow, Center on Human Exceptionalism
Wesley J. Smith is Chair and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. Wesley is a contributor to National Review and is the author of 14 books, in recent years focusing on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley has been recognized as one of America’s premier public intellectuals on bioethics by National Journal and has been honored by the Human Life Foundation as a “Great Defender of Life” for his work against suicide and euthanasia. Wesley’s most recent book is Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement.

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