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Dear colleagues,

With reference to the recent debate on veganism and

vegetarianism I attach this article against vegetarianism that I came across

recently. I know it will anger many people in this list but feel it is

important to read for the sake of free enquiry;

Regards and best wishes,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*http*://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.760/healthissue_detail.asp<http://www.\

acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.760/healthissue_detail.asp>

Why I Am Not a Vegetarian

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By Dr. William T. Jarvis

Posted: Tuesday, April 1, 1997

 

ARTICLES

Publication April 1, 1997

 

Vegetarianism has taken on a " political correctness " comparable to the

respectability it had in the last century, when many social and scientific

progressives advocated it. Today, crusaders extol meatless eating not only

as healthful but also as a solution to world hunger and as a safeguard of

" Mother Earth. " The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)

aggressively attacks the use of animal foods and has proposed its own

food-groups model, which excludes all animal products.

 

I disclaimed vegetarianism after many years of observance. Although the

arguments in favor of it appear compelling, I have learned to be suspicious,

and to search for hidden agendas, when I evaluate claims of the benefits of

vegetarianism. Vegetarianism is riddled with delusional thinking from which

even scientists and medical professionals are not immune.

 

Don't get me wrong: I know that meatless diets can be healthful, even

desirable, for some people. For example: (a) Men with an iron-loading gene

are better off without red meat, because it contains heme iron, which is

highly absorbable and can increase their risk of heart disease. (b) Because

vegetarian diets are likely to contain less saturated fat than nonvegetarian

diets, they may be preferable for persons with familial

hypercholesterolemia. © Vegetables contain phytochemicals that appear

protective against colorectal cancer. (d) Homocysteinemia (elevated plasma

homocysteine) approximately doubles the risk of coronary artery disease.

Several congenital and nutritional disorders, including deficiencies of

vitamins B6 and B12 and folic acid, can cause this condition. Since folic

acid occurs mostly in vegetables, low intakes of the vitamin are less likely

among vegetarians than among nonvegetarians. (e) Some people find that being

a vegetarian helps to control their weight. Vegetarianism tends to

facilitate weight control because it is a form of food restriction; and in

our overfed society, food restriction is a plus unless it entails a deficit

of some essential nutrient.

 

However, one need not eliminate meat from one's diet for any of the

foregoing reasons. Apparently, it is ample consumption of fruits and

vegetables, not the exclusion of meat, that makes vegetarianism healthful.

 

*Dog Day Afternoon?*

 

The term " vegetarian " is misleading, for it is not a name for people who

favor vegetable consumption, but a code word for those who *dis*favor or

protest the consumption of animal foods. The neologism

*anticarnivorist*better characterizes the majority of those who call

themselves vegetarians.

I call myself a " vegetable enthusiast, " because I strongly encourage eating

lots of vegetables, including legumes, whole grains, and fruits. I believe

that these foods are desirable not only because of their high nutrient

density and low caloric density, but also because of aesthetic and gustatory

factors. Being a vegetable enthusiast doesn't entail rejecting the use of

meat or animal products.

 

Most people who categorize vegetarians identify at least five different

kinds, based on which types of animal food they consume:

*Semivegetarians*consume dairy products, eggs, fish, and chicken;

*pesco-vegetarians* consume dairy products, eggs, and fish; *

lacto-ovo-vegetarians*, dairy products and eggs; ovo-vegetarians, eggs; and

vegans, no animal foods. From a behavioral standpoint, I categorize

vegetarians as either pragmatic or ideologic. A *pragmatic* *vegetarian* is

one whose dietary behavior stems from objective health considerations (e.g.,

hypercholesterolemia or obesity). Pragmatic vegetarians are rational, rather

than emotional, in their approach to making lifestyle decisions. In

contrast, vegetarianism is a " matter of principle " for *ideologic

vegetarians*; its appropriateness is a given.

 

One can spot ideologic vegetarians by their exaggerations of the benefits of

vegetarianism, their lack of skepticism, and their failure to recognize (or

their glossing over of) the potential risks even of extreme vegetarian

diets. Ideologic vegetarians make a pretense of being scientific, but they

approach the subject of vegetarianism more like lawyers than scientists.

Promoters of vegetarianism gather data selectively and gear their arguments

toward discrediting information that is contrary to their dogma. This

approach to defending a position is suitable for a debate, but it cannot

engender scientific understanding.

 

Because of the influence of my Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) environment, I

practiced vegetarianism for many years. My wife and I even tried to give up

consuming all animal products, but this didn't work. We sometimes muse aloud

about the morning we put soymilk on our breakfast cereal. We ended up eating

the cereal with a fork because we found the mixture repulsive. We had

another unforgettable experience when we ate with a group of vegetarian

hippies in the Oregon woods. We were there at their request to advise them

on vegetarian eating. They had already prepared the worst-looking vegetarian

stew I have ever seen or tasted. It consisted of raw peanuts and a variety

of half-cooked vegetables. After eating it, I had heartburn for hours.

Digestive distress is legendary among SDAs.

 

Reasons for adopting vegetarianism can be very personal. Some years ago I

shared a podium for several days with a vegetarian. It became clear from our

informal conversations that he was not religious; so I asked him why he had

opted for vegetarianism. He told me a touching story about having been a

lonely boy whose closest companion was his pet dog. He said that, peering

into the dog's eyes one day, he had come to see the animal as a fellow

being. Soon he had applied this view to all animals, and since he could not

bear the thought of eating his dog, he could no longer eat other animals.

 

*North by Northwest*

 

Darla Erhardt, R.D., M.P.H., listed five vegetarian postulates: (1) All

forms of life are sacred, and all creatures have a right to live out their

natural lives. (2) It is anatomically clear that God did not design humans

to eat meat. (3) Slaughter is repugnant and degrading. (4) Raising animals

for meat is inefficient and misuses available land. (5) Animal flesh is

unhealthful because it contains toxins, virulent bacteria, uric acid, impure

fluids, and the wrong kinds of nutrients. 1 I find all of these axioms

flawed:

 

1. The belief that all life is sacred can lead to absurdities such as

allowing mosquitoes to spread malaria, or vipers to run loose on one's

premises. Inherent in the idea that all life is sacred is the supposition

that all forms of life have equal value. The natural world reveals

hierarchies in the food chain, the dominance of certain species over others.

And most creatures in the wild die (usually the victim of a predator) long

before they have reached the genetic limit on their longevity.

2. The multifarious dietary practices of human populations belie the notion

that humans are designed to be vegetarians rather than omnivores. For

example, Australian aborigines consume insect larvae and reptiles, Eskimos

eat raw meat, and traditional Hindus are vegetarians.

 

The first SDA physician, John Harvey Kellogg (1852®¢1943), was a vegetarian

zealot. Alonzo Baker, Ph.D., his former private secretary, told me of an

incident that occurred circa 1939: Kellogg awakened him in the middle of the

night and ordered him to board the morning train for Cleveland. There,

Weston Price, D.D.S., who had just returned from the mysterious high north,

was to give a report on Eskimo dietary habits. When Baker returned, he

informed Kellogg of Price's finding that Eskimos ate raw meat almost

exclusively (*eskimo* literally means " raw meat eater " ). Kellogg accused

Price of lying.

 

Perhaps Kellogg disbelieved Price partly because it was widely known that

the 1898 Yukon gold rushers had suffered extensively from scurvy. People

generally believed that Eskimos derived their vitamin C from berries the

snow had preserved. In fact, Eskimos derive vitamin C from the raw meat of

animals who synthesize ascorbic acid. If they had cooked their meat, they

would have developed scurvy like the gold rushers. (When I visited Northwest

Territories, Canada, in 1973, a Franciscan monk who raised beautiful

vegetables in a greenhouse in Pelly Bay told me that the Inuits, or North

American Eskimos, didn't like their taste and wouldn't eat them.)

 

3. Whether something is repugnant is highly individual. Some Hindus who will

not eat animal foods readily drink their own urine for the sake of health.

And what is repugnant —for example, chores such as changing a baby's diaper

or caring for sick people —is not necessarily wrong. Whether such activities

are degrading is a matter of opinion. That most prey are eaten while they

are still alive testifies to the heartlessness of nature compared to

slaughterhouses, where death is generally quick and painless.

4. The idea that animal-raising is an inefficient way to produce food is

half-baked. Animals pull their weight when it comes to land-use and

food-production efficiency: They graze on lands unsuitable for crop-growing,

eat those portions of plants that are considered inedible (e.g., corn stalks

and husks), and provide byproducts and services that ease human burdens. 2

Many nomadic populations survive on lands that lack farming potential by

feeding on animals whose nourishment is coarse vegetation humans can't

digest.

 

5. The postulate that toxins render meat unfit as food also lacks merit.

Plants also contain naturally occurring toxicants, many of which are far

more deadly than those of animal flesh. 3 Vegetarian evangelists who revel

in portraying animal foods as unhealthful disregard the fact that those

societies that consume the most animal products enjoy record longevity. They

also overlook the reality that the animals they brand as diseased are

herbivores whose diet consists entirely of raw vegetation. These animals

develop many diseases " despite " becoming vegans after weaning.

 

*Ideologic Vegetarianism*

 

Much of my professional life has been spent studying health fraud, quackery,

and related misinformation, and their impact on people's lives. I have

discerned a recurrent sequence of behaviors: First, the prospective

vegetarian eliminates reportedly unhealthful foods from his or her diet,

beginning with foods that society considers " bad for you " (e.g., sugar,

coffee, and white bread). Next, if concerns about food safety grow to

neurotic proportions, the person scrutinizes labels and worries about

ingredients indicated by terms he doesn't understand. Then he may patronize

health food stores, where clerks and publications can feed his phobias. He

may treat modern foods as poisonous. Finally, if he deems vegetarianism not

restrictive enough, the " health foodist " may turn to veganism. In my

opinion, it is at this point that vegetarianism becomes hazardous,

especially for children.

 

The case of Sonja and Khachadour Atikian illustrates what can happen to

those seduced by ideologic vegetarianism. The Atikians were ÎmigrÎs from

Lebanon who —because of unrelenting media barrages focusing on environmental

pollution, diet, and health —became overly concerned about the safety and

healthfulness of modern foods. Sonja Atikian began shopping at health food

stores instead of supermarkets. Gerhardt Hanswille, a self-styled herbalist

from Germany, taught classes in the rear of a health food store she

patronized. Although Hanswille was not licensed to practice medicine, he saw

40 to 45 " patients " day. He treated Ms. Atikian for a sore knee, and she

took some of his courses. Hanswille taught that: (a) people should not kill

animals, nor consume animal products; (b) God intended cow's milk to be food

for calves, not human babies; © eating eggs deprives hens of fulfilling

their divinely intended role as mothers; (d) people should not poison

themselves or the earth with the unnatural products of modern living; (e)

using herbs both as food and as medicine is God's way; and (f) the medicines

of doctors are poisons. " Choose whom you will believe, " said Hanswille, " me

or the doctors. You can't have it both ways. "

 

Ms. Atikian chose poorly. Except for eating fish occasionally, she followed

the herbalist's advice during pregnancy. She delivered a healthy 8.2-lb girl

named Loreie. Hanswille convinced the Atikians that the newborn would become

a superbaby if they gave her a vegetarian diet of raw, organic foods. He

dissuaded them from having the infant immunized and from continuing to see a

pediatrician. And he induced them to rely on him for healthcare advice.

 

Four and a half months after her birth, Loreie's weight was still at the

75th percentile, but when she was 11 months old, breast-feeding —her sole

source of animal food —discontinued. Fed only fruits, vegetables, and rice,

she eventually stopped growing, slept more and more, and had more and more

infections. As the baby's health spiraled downward, Hanswille assured the

parents that her decline was merely " the poisons coming out of her body " and

that she would eventually become the superbaby they desired. In 1987,

17-month-old Loreie died of bronchial pneumonia complicated by severe

malnutrition. She weighed 111/4 lbs. The Atikians were charged with failing

to provide their daughter with the " necessaries of life. " Their defense was

that they had truly believed they had been providing the " necessaries of

life " when they followed Hanswille's advice. The judge acquitted them after

the discovery that the prosecution had failed to provide important

information supporting the couple's story.

 

Let's run through some other examples of ideologic vegetarian extremism:

 

 

* It caused mental and growth retardation in two boys underfed from birth to

ages 3 and 5. Their mother had become a vegetarian, later eliminated sugar

and dairy products from her diet, and eventually adopted a macrobiotic diet

(see " Peculiar Vegetarianism " ). 4

 

* Ten cases of nutritional rickets were reported among infants (most of whom

were breast-fed) of strict-vegetarian mothers who had not sought medical

counsel during pregnancy but had obtained advice from health food stores. 5

 

* Scurvy and rickets occurred in two boys, 11/2 and 21/2 years old, whose

parents were adherents of the Zen Macrobiotic diet (see Peculiar

Vegetarianism below). 6

 

* A 36-year-old former college professor attempted to become a "

breatharian " —one who supposedly feeds on air alone —and died of

malnutrition. First he became a vegetarian, then a fruitarian, then a "

liquidarian " (consuming juices only), and finally, a would-be breatharian. 7

 

 

* A 2-month-old boy died because his mother, following the invalid

recommendation for colic in Adelle Davis's *Let's Have Healthy Children*,

overdosed him with potassium. 8 In a television interview, the mother said

that, as she became increasingly estranged toward conventional medicine, she

had adopted vegetarianism and then veganism.

 

* A 24-year-old woman who was head of San Jose State University's student

art program died after taking an extract of pennyroyal to induce an

abortion. She was described as " a strict vegetarian who was involved in

holistic medicine. " 9

 

For the ideologist, vegetarianism is a hygienic religion. It enables

believers to practice self-denial. As a religion, vegetarianism attracts the

guilt-ridden. It attracts masochists because it gives guilt a boost. And it

seduces the unskeptical by causing guilt and/or by instilling false guilt.

Guilt leads to self-denial, even asceticism. The belief that salvation is

attainable by eschewing worldly pleasures marked the asceticism of early

Christian zealots. Similarly, health neurotics with medical problems seem to

believe that the more they restrict their alimentary pleasures, the more

their health will improve. Fasting, austere diets, enemas, and the ingestion

of bitter herbs are consistent with the psychological needs of health

neurotics, many of whom shun those voices of conventional medicine and

public health that might disenchant them.

 

Of course, I don't blame ideologic vegetarianism per se *entirely* for

tragedies such as those outlined above. Mental or emotional disorders

apparently figure in many instances. In such cases, extremism is more to

blame. This doesn't take ideologic vegetarianism off the hook, however, for

it can fuel or ignite psychological problems.

 

*Eating by the Book?*

 

SDA vegetarianism is rooted in the Bible, according to which for food God

gave humans " all plants that bear seed everywhere on earth, and every tree

bearing fruit that yields seed " (Genesis 1:29). Meat is said to have become

a part of the human diet after the Flood, when all plant life had been

destroyed: " Every creature that lives and moves shall be food for you "

(Genesis 9:3). Adventists are taught that the introduction of meat into the

human diet at that time decreased the human life span from the more than 900

years of the first humans to today's " three-score and ten. "

 

However, the Bible warns against confusing dietary practices with moral

behavior:

 

For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace.

(Romans 14:17)

 

Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink. (Colossians

2:16)

 

One believes he may eat anything, while the weak man eats only vegetables,

let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains

pass judgment on him who eats. (Romans 14:2-4)

 

It also seems to condemn vegetarianism:

 

 

The Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some in the church

will turn away from Christ and become eager followers of teachers with devil

inspired ideas. These teachers will tell lies with straight faces and do it

so often that their consciences won't even bother them. They will say that

it is wrong to be married and wrong to eat meat, even though God gave these

things to well-taught Christians to enjoy and be thankful for. For

everything God made is good, and we may eat it gladly if we are thankful for

it. ( I Timothy 4:1-4, *Living Bible*)

 

SDA Church pioneer Ellen G. White (1827®¢1915) was a proponent of

vegetarianism even though she did not practice it herself. Like the

Grahamites of her time, she taught that gradually the earth would become

more corrupted, diseases and calamities worse, and the food —particularly

animal foods —unsafe. In 1902 she wrote that the time might come when the

use of milk should be discontinued. Although White was an advocate of

science and chiefly responsible for making SDA healthcare a science-based

enterprise, clearly she did not anticipate twentieth-century advances in

public health and medical science. Despite the record longevity now enjoyed

by people in the developed nations, vegetarian zealots within the church

caught up in the doomsday hysteria of the 1990s have decided that the time

has come to give up all animal foods and are fervidly preaching veganism.

 

*East of Eden*

 

It is possible to provide all essential nutrients except vitamin B12 without

using animal foods. On the other hand, it is possible to provide all

essential nutrients with a diet composed only of meat. Personal dietary

appropriateness —including the value of a diet as a source of essential

nutrients and its value as a preventative —for oneself and one's significant

others is the foremost dietary consideration of pragmatic vegetarians. In

contrast, the overriding dietary consideration of ideologic vegetarians

varies with the particular ideology. Typically, their motivation is a blend

of physical, psychosocial, societal, and moral, often religious, concerns.

 

A continual problem for SDAs who espouse the " back to Eden " ideology is the

absence of a non-animal food source of vitamin B12. A vegetarian Registered

Dietitian who wrote a column for a church periodical asked me if I thought

vegans could derive vitamin B12 from organic vegetables that were unwashed

before ingestion. I opined that it would be better to eat animal foods than

fecal residues. She agreed.

 

A perennial assumption among vegetarians is that vegetarianism increases

longevity. In the last century, Grahamites —devotees of the Christian

" hygienic " philosophy of Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) —taught that adherence

to the Garden of Eden lifestyle would eventuate in humankind's reclamation

of the potential for superlongevity, such as that attributed to Adam (930

years) or Methuselah (969 years). I discussed this matter 25 years ago with

an SDA physician who was dean of the Loma Linda University (LLU) School of

Health. Although he admitted that lifelong SDA vegetarians had not exhibited

spectacular longevity, he professed that longevity of the antediluvian sort

might become possible over several generations of vegetarianism. SDA

periodicals publicize centenarians and often attribute their longevity to

the SDA lifestyle. However, of 1200 people who reached the century mark

between 1932 and 1952, only four were vegetarians. 10 I continue to ask:

Where on Earth is there an exceptionally longevous population of

vegetarians? Hindus have practiced vegetarianism for many generations but

have not set longevity records. At best, the whole of scientific data from

nutrition-related research supports vegetarianism only tentatively. The

incidence of colorectal cancer among nonvegetarian Mormons is lower than

that of SDAs. 11 A review of populations at low risk for cancer showed that

World War I veterans who never smoked had the lowest risk of all. 12 As data

accumulate, optimism that diet is a significant factor in cancer appears to

be diminishing. An analysis of 13 case-control studies of colorectal cancer

and dietary fiber showed that, for the studies with the best research

methods, risk estimates for dietary fiber and colorectal cancer were closer

to zero.13 A pooled analysis of studies of fat intake and the risk of breast

cancer that included SDA data showed no association. 14

 

A meatless diet can facilitate weight control because it is a form of food

restriction. But one need not eliminate meat to maintain a healthy weight,

and there are many overweight vegetarians. Surely prudence and selectivity

overshadow mere abstention from consuming animal products.

 

*Daniel's Diet*

 

According to the first chapter of the Book of Daniel, Israel's captive whiz

kids — " well favored, and skillful in all wisdom, and cunning in all

knowledge, and understanding science " (verse 4) —after subsisting on just

vegetables and water for ten days, impressed the Babylonian king as far

superior to all the magicians and astrologers " in all matters of wisdom and

understanding " (verse 20). Many ideological vegetarians credit vegetables

for group's physical and mental improvement (see " A 'Biblical' Alternativist

Method " ). A more credible proposition is that abstention from drinking wine

caused the improvement, which the story ascribes to God.

 

In an interview on the school's Christian radio station in the mid-1970s, an

LLU nutrition graduate student (who was not an SDA) claimed that

vegetarianism produced superior intellects. To make her case, she stated:

 

 

Linus Pauling says that vitamin C improves intelligence. Vegetarians get

more vitamin C in their diets than meat-eaters. The probable reason why

George Bernard Shaw and Leo Tolstoy were brilliant was because they were

vegetarians.

 

The interviewer agreed, extolling the health and intellect of vegetarians.

That Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian went unmentioned during the interview.

Also unmentioned was that Jesus Christ, Mohammed, and other eminent

moralists were not vegetarians.

 

Animal behavioral scientists have noted that, to survive, meat-eating

predators must outsmart their vegetarian prey. However, I believe that all

such theories break down because of the difficulty of defining intelligence.

 

 

SDAs note that meat-eating predators such as wolves and lions have

tremendous speed but lack endurance. However, Arctic sled dogs that run the

1200-mile Ididarod cover more than a hundred miles per day —a feat no horse,

mule or ox can accomplish.

 

The idea that vegetarians have superior physical endurance was reinforced in

1974 when a group of male vegetarian runners called " the vegetarian seven "

set a 24-hour distance record. This inspired an undergraduate dietetics

major to seek me out as a coach for a group of seven female vegetarian

long-distance runners. I asked her what their motivations were —something

every coach needs to know. She said they wanted to demonstrate the

superiority of a vegetarian diet. I asked who would be representing the

meat-eaters. She said that, because the event would not be a standard

competition, no one would represent the meat-eaters. I revealed to her that

three of the male runners had not been vegetarians until training for the

record-setting event but merely had pledged to become so. I also told her:

that genetic factors, principally the capacity for oxygen uptake, determine

distance-running ability; that whether a diet is vegetarian is

inconsequential to distance-running ability; and that a 24-hour run is a

perilous way to try proving vegetarian superiority. " What will you do, " I

inquired, " if seven meat-eating, beer-drinking atheists who are world-class

runners decide to beat your record? " She got the point. And although she

became an accomplished amateur runner, she didn't use her success to

propagandize for vegetarianism.

 

John Harvey Kellogg sought to prove that vegetarians were physically

superior by fielding a Battle Creek College football team, which he

personally coached. According to a former player, " Brother " Wright, whenever

Kellogg's players lost, he railed at them for cheating on their diets and

held them captive until one would say he had broken training rules and eaten

meat. Wright stated that sometimes a player would eventually lie that he had

eaten meat just to get the team released. He described Kellogg's efforts as

" a crusade to prove the superiority of vegetarianism. " Ellen G. White's

condemnation of this approach to proving SDA superiority led to a policy

restricting interscholastic sports by Adventist schools.

 

*Odorless Doo-doo?*

 

The John Harvey Kellogg character in the 1995 film *Road to

Wellville*stated that his feces had no more odor than that of " freshly

baked

biscuits. " One evening I offered a ride home from the university to an

elderly colleague, an avid vegetarian. Upon entering my car, he declared:

" When I drink carrot juice, my bowel movements have no odor. "

 

Before I could respond, he said: " Rabbits eat lots of carrots, and their

feces have no odor. " The thought of someone running around sniffing little

piles of rabbit doo-doo almost made me laugh, but I didn't want to be

disrespectful. His idea that rabbits eat many carrots intrigued me. I had

raised them in my boyhood and discovered that, despite the passion for

carrots shown by Bugs Bunny, real bunnies are not particularly fond of

carrots. Furthermore, wild rabbits seldom would have an opportunity to eat

carrots. Luckily the ride was short.

 

The late Pulitzer Prize-winning anthropologist Ernest Becker argued that

defecation is most closely associated with humankind's animality and

mortality. 15 During a Bible class at an SDA school, I was taught that

people did not defecate in the Garden of Eden but utilized the food they

ingested in its entirety. Apparently, foul odors did not befit Paradise.

(Perhaps the persistence of the miasmatic theory of disease —the theory that

diseases are due to foul-smelling emanations from the earth —well into the

nineteenth century, when SDA beliefs were developed, reinforced the idea of

a poopless Paradise.) I was also taught that roughage became part of the

human diet after the Fall. Allegedly, this broadening of the diet to include

" the herb of the field " (Genesis 3:18, King James version) occurred because

humans were now under the " death sentence " caused by original sin. Whether

this reportedly was a voluntary dietary change or part of the curse of being

ousted from Paradise is debatable. Some versions of the Bible imply that

" the herb of the field " merely meant " wild foods " (New English Version), not

a new source of food.

 

*Heavy " PETAing " *

 

In the last century, the pacifist movement was vegetarian because of the

belief that meat-eating animals were fierce and vegetarian animals were

docile. The British poet Percy Bysshe Shelley claimed that the French

revolution had been bloody and the English revolution bloodless because the

French ate more meat than the English. 16 Such invalid notions have been

discredited, but not abandoned. Some boxers still eat raw meat or drink

blood before a fight to increase their aggressiveness.

 

People who fancy themselves morally superior often have a mission to convert

humanity to their worldview. The most violent ideologic vegetarians are the

animal-rights activists, who have destroyed animal research facilities and

threatened researchers' lives. Animal-rights groups such as People for the

Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) consider animals on par with humans. On

April 24, 1996, PETA's Ingrid Newkirk appeared on the television

newsmagazine *Day & Date* opposing sport fishing. She began her argument by

seeking commiseration for suffocating fish. Then she said that fish were

unhealthful food because they contained mercury and other environmental

contaminants. The solution, according to Newkirk, was vegetarianism. Her

opponent, a TV talk-show host, pressed her into acknowledging the PETA

creed. The talk-show host described an on-air encounter she had had with

another PETA representative. A scenario had been presented in which the

representative's daughter needed a vital organ from a beloved household pet

in order to survive. The ethical question had been whether the child's life

was worth more than the pet's. The PETA representative had held that the

child had no more value than the pet. Newkirk did not contest the assertion

that PETA considers the life of a child no more valuable than that of a pet.

 

 

When an LLU medical team transplanted a baboon's heart into an infant whose

pseudonym was " Baby Fae, " animal-rights activists picketed the medical

center. They seemed disillusioned with SDAs, who have no qualms about

prioritizing humans over animals. In October 1992, after a pig's liver had

been transplanted into a 30-year-old woman to enable her to survive until a

human liver was secured, a representative of PCRM engaged in a televised

debate with one of the physicians who had performed the transplant. The

representative lamented that the pig's consent had not been obtained.

 

PCRM appears to be largely a personal forum for its leader, Neal Barnard,

M.D., and is said to be substantially funded by PETA. (In fiscal year 1994,

donations and grants to PCRM reportedly totaled more than a million dollars.

17) Barnard extols the longevity value of vegetarianism. He has claimed:

" It's not genetics or fate that gives people long, healthy lives and cuts

other people short; for those who want to take care of themselves, it all

comes down to diet. " The surgeon argued that pigs were killed daily for

meat, including their livers. The PCRM doctor retorted that the consumption

of animal fat (which is highly saturated) was responsible for most deaths in

modern society. He cited a study conducted by Colin Campbell in China.

Campbell had focused on the relative morbidity for certain diseases without

pointing out that life expectancy in China (66 years) is lower that that in

the United States (75 years). 18

 

Because they consider themselves morally superior, many vegetarians exhibit

no reservations against using mind-control techniques or terrorism to

actualize their agenda. Mind control includes using information selectively

to " educate " people about the alleged superiority of vegetarianism. It may

also include traumatizing people emotionally to condition them against the

use of animal foods. Early in my teaching experience, I attended a meeting

of SDA secondary school health teachers where many said that they converted

students to vegetarianism by taking them on field trips to slaughterhouses

to witness the bloodshed. This strategy offended me even though I was a

practicing vegetarian at the time. Having studied for years how people have

been manipulated by cults and quacks, it is now clear to me that the

slaughterhouse tactic is a form of mind control —that it is as unethical as

discouraging little girls from having sex by inducing them to watch a

difficult childbirth.

 

Terrorism involves trying to coerce people to behave in ways the

perpetrators desire. In December 1994, to keep people from having turkey for

Christmas dinner, self-described animal-rights terrorists claimed they had

injected rat poison into supermarket turkeys in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The scare caused the destruction of more than $1 million in turkeys.

Apparently, the activists had not foreseen the ensuing slaughter of turkeys

as replacements.

 

*Disclosure *

 

Research into vegetarianism by vegetarians always involves at least

unconscious bias. All humans have entrenched beliefs —beliefs whose

rootedness makes doing related scientific research unwise. Kenneth J.

Rothman, Dr.P.H., referred to SDAs in a recent discussion of conflicts of

interest in research:

 

 

We might expect conflict of interest concerns to be raised, for example,

about Seventh Day Adventists who are studying the health effects of the

comparatively abstemious lifestyle of their fellow Adventists. Whereas

policies at [the *Journal of the American Medical Association*] and *The New

England Journal of Medicine* emphasize financial conflicts, Science asks

authors to divulge " any relationships that they believe could be construed

as causing a conflict of interest, whether or not the individual believes

that is actually so. " In other words, to comply with disclosure policies at

Science, authors might need to disclose to editors their religion and sexual

orientation along with their financial portfolio. 19

 

Although Rothman argues for letting work standing on its own merit rather

than judging cynically any possible connection to a funding source, his

example makes the point that motivations more powerful than money can

distort data. Science fraud can be extremely difficult to detect, because

the perpetrators control the information. As Mark Twain observed, " Figures

don't lie, but liars figure! "

 

I don't believe that *all* research done by vegetarians is untrustworthy. My

experience with the ongoing Seventh-day Adventist Health Study (SDAHS), a

series of studies conducted from LLU School of Public Health, has been

largely positive. Its chief researcher, the late Roland Phillips, M.D.,

Dr.P.H., was an outstanding scientist in whose objectivity I had the utmost

confidence. He recognized the problem of the influence of social

expectations on SDAs responding to questions about their lifestyle.

Adventist groupthink makes it likely that SDAs will underreport activities

disfavored by the church community (e.g., meat-eating, coffee drinking, and

imbibing) and over-report those that are approved (e.g., dining meatlessly

and exercising). Phillips seemed to feel that the benefits of vegetarianism

per se were limited, and that one must take account of heredity,

socioeconomic status, and the total SDA lifestyle. Abstention from smoking,

access to state-of-the-art healthcare, and strong social support probably

are responsible for most of the health benefits SDAs enjoy. The main problem

with SDA vegetarian science is how the scientific information is used. To

paraphrase an old Pennsylvania Dutch saying: Among SDAs, when the news about

vegetarianism and health is good, " we hear it ever " ; when the news is not

good, " we hear it never. "

 

I have received numerous reports from SDA health professionals, and have

personal knowledge of other cases, in which church members' overconfidence

in vegetarianism prevented them from obtaining effective medical care. Some

reports have involved true believers in vegetarianism who were members of

physicians' families. Some denied symptoms, and their denial kept them from

seeking effective intervention in time. Others rejected medical care for

" natural remedies " that emphasized diet. The attitudes evidenced are

consistent with those identified in cancer patients who had turned to

quackery because they believed they had brought the disease upon themselves

and could cure it by " natural " practices. 20 The SDA Church has bent over

backward to document the benefits of the SDA lifestyle and to persuade

members to adopt vegetarian diets. I would like to see the church seek

earnestly to expose the harm that its vegetarian teachings have caused its

members. Alas, there's the rub with ideologic vegetarianism: Objectivity

always takes a back seat to proselytism.

 

The data suggest that most SDAs are reasonable in their approach to

vegetarianism. In the 1970s, the SDAHS revealed that only one percent were

vegans. 21 This may change as vegetarianism becomes more popular in the

general population. SDAs tend to be overachievers. If we regard something as

" good, " we strive to adopt it completely. If we consider something " bad, " we

avoid it completely. SDA vegetarian evangelists have become more aggressive

in recent years because of the widespread belief in the SDA community that

doomsday is nigh.

 

I recall an SDA church leader's fitting reply to the question of whether he

ate meat: " I eat just enough to keep me from becoming a fanatic! "

 

*One Less " Ism " *

 

I gave up vegetarianism because I found that commitment thereto meant

surrendering the objectivity that is essential to the personal and

professional integrity of a scientist. As a health educator, I feel I have

an obligation to endeavor to stick to whatever unvarnished facts scientific

research uncovers. I can support pragmatic vegetarianism, but I believe that

crusading vegetarian ideologues are dangerous to themselves and to society.

 

*ACSH advisor William T. Jarvis, Ph.D., is a professor of public health and

preventive medicine at Loma Linda University, founder and president of the

National Council Against Health Fraud, and coeditor of The Health Robbers: A

Close Look at Quackery in America (1993). This article is an adaptation of

one published by Prometheus Books (Amherst, New York) in the

November/December 1996 issue of Nutrition & Health Forum newsletter.*

 

1. D. Erhardt, " The New Vegetarians, Part OneÑVegetarianism and its Medical

Consequences, " Nutrition Today, November/December, 1973.

 

2. R. Spitzer. No Need For Hunger. Danville, Ill.: Interstate Printers and

Publishers, 1981.

 

3. National Academy of Sciences. Toxicants Occurring Naturally In Foods.

Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1973.

 

4. J. Wood. " Mother of Starved Children Asks Permission to Give Birth

Again, " San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, March 27, 1983, p. A5.

 

5. Journal of Nutrition Education 1981; 13:26.

 

6. Newsweek, September 18, 1972, p. 71.

 

7. " Temple Beautiful DietÑDeath for David Blume, " (AP) San Bernardino Sun,

October 15, 1979, p. A-3.

 

8. C.V. Wetli and J.H. Davis. JAMA 1978; 240:1339.

 

9. San Jose Mercury News, August 20, 1994.

 

10. O. Segerberg. Living to Be 100: 1200 Who Did and How They Did It. New

York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982.

 

11. J.L. Lyon, M.R. Klauber, J.W. Gardner, and C.R. Smart, " Cancer Incidence

in Mormons and Non-Mormons in Utah, 1966-70, " N Engl J Med 1976; 294:129-133

(p.132).

 

12. J.E. Enstrom. " Cancer Mortality among Low-Risk Populations, " CA — A

Cancer Journal for Clinicians 1979; 29:352-61.

 

13. C.M. Friedenreich, R.F. Brant, and E. Riboli. " Influence of

Methodological Factors in a Pooled Analysis of 13 Case-Control Studies of

Colorectal Cancer and Dietary Fiber, " Epidemiology 1994; 5:66-79.

 

14. D.J. Hunter et al. " Cohort Studies of Fat Intake and the Risk of Breast

CancerÑA Pooled Analysis, " New Engl J Med 1996; 334:356-61.

 

15. E. Becker. The Denial of Death. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.,

Inc., 1973.

 

16. J. Whorton. " Tempest in a Flesh-Pot: Development of a Physiological

Rationale for Vegetarianism, " Journal of the History of Medicine, April

1977, pp. 119-120.

 

17. Good Medicine, Spring 1995.

 

18. The Population Reference Bureau, Inc., Washington, D.C., 1988.

 

19. K. Rothman. " Conflict of Interest: The New McCarthyism in Science, " JAMA

1993; 269 (21):2782-4.

 

20. B. Cassileth et al. " Contemporary Treatments in Cancer Medicine, " Ann

Intern Med 1984; 101:105-12.

 

21. " Researchers Release Adventist Health Study Results, " Pacific Union

Recorder, March 12, 1979.

 

(From Priorities, Vol. 9, No. 2)

 

 

 

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