Alleged Death by Veganism: Why a False Story Has Legs

[BrklynLiberal]

Alleged Death by Veganism: Why a False Story Has Legs
By SHERRY F. COLB
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Tuesday, May. 29, 2007

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A child's death is always tragic, particularly when it is protracted, painful and as unnecessary as Crown Shakur's was. But what made his death especially newsworthy was not the fact that it was tragic; it was the unusual defense that his parents mounted: They said their son died because they had fed him a vegan diet.

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What Is a Vegan?

For readers who are unfamiliar with distinctions between "vegetarians" and "vegans," some definitions may be in order. Though people use the terms in different ways, a "vegetarian" generally refers to someone whose diet does not include the flesh of animals (including mammals, birds, and fish). A "vegan," by contrast, refers to someone who does not eat or use products made out of animals or resulting from the exploitation of animals. A vegan, for example, does not eat eggs or dairy products and does not wear leather shoes.

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Though a growing number of men and women have made a commitment to ethical veganism (or have taken steps in that direction), an overwhelming majority of our planet's inhabitants continue to consume animal products. As with any minority practice, it is therefore not entirely surprising that the majority would harbor some prejudices about vegans and their diet. A common misconception is that one cannot obtain sufficient protein or iron without meat, dairy, or eggs.

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Did the Baby Die of Veganism?

Enter Lamont Thomas and Jade Sanders, the couple whose child starved to death. The baby was in his parents' custody. He weighed less than a normal newborn baby at six weeks old. He died of starvation. In all that time, he was never taken to a doctor. Why did he die? It must be because he was a vegan, said the defense.

Though the prosecutor and the jury rejected this defense, it nonetheless had what Stephen Colbert might call "truthiness." Perhaps eating meat, dairy, and eggs supports animal cruelty, but we have no alternative - just look at Crown Shakur, the baby who died of veganism, the story would go.

Last week, the New York Times published an op/ed titled "Death By Veganism" that misleadingly characterized Crown Shakur's death in just such terms. The reality, of course, is that no one familiar with the case (other than the guilty defendants) attributed the boy's death to the failure to feed him animal products. Indeed, many babies his age cannot tolerate dairy, and pediatricians accordingly recommend soy formulas for mothers who cannot or will not breastfeed - effectively, a pediatrician-approved vegan diet.

For those who do not want to feel guilty about eating or feeding their children the products of unspeakable cruelty, however, the notion that veganism killed a baby is as seductive as it is false.

Believing What We Want to Believe

People are often drawn to the beliefs that provide the most comfort, rather than those that best correspond to reality. At one time, for example, it felt good to think that the sun revolved around the earth - that our planet was at the center of the universe. Copernicus then came along and discovered the heliocentric truth - a truth that Galileo was later persecuted rather than praised for adopting and defending.

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To give one famous example, as Ron Suskind has reported, an aide to President Bush criticized Suskind and others like him for occupying "what we call the reality-based community," a community made up of people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." "That's not the way the world really works anymore," the aide reportedly continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

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http://writ.news.findlaw.com/colb/20070529.html

[yewberry]

1. I was surprised at how many appearances that story made at DU.

I was also surprised at just how many here saw through the nasty spin on the story and recognized that "vegan" didn't cause that baby's death. Sure, there are (and probably always will be) those with an axe to grind regarding veganism or veg*n DUers, but I was glad to see that the "vegan killers" angle didn't get much traction beyond those folks.

Thanks for the article!
:hi:

[LeftyMom]

2. I think as more people know healthy vegans generally and especially healthy vegan kids

we'll see a lot less of this sort of hysteria and misinformation.

IRL only one person even bothered to ask me about it, and all I had to do to address her questions was to explain what precisely those people were feeding. I didn't even have to go into how far that it diverged from mainstream vegan childrearing, as the problems were extremely obvious even to my nutrition-ignorant omni friend. (And if she gets it, anybody can. She's on Atkins for chrissake.) For the most part lengthy exposure to my own healthy and thriving vegan child meant a lot more to people I interact with than the media portrayal of this case. OTOH, I know a lot of young vegan women who got anxious comments from people who were worried about their future offspring which were annoying and problematic, presumably because they didn't have that ability to just point at a robust and healthy child the way I can when the question of vegan nutrition in children comes up. So as veganism becomes more common and as more people know children who are vegan, a lot of the mystery and myth will go away.