Vegan Diet Once Again Bashed For Pregnant Moms, Vancouver Sun Screws Up
Posted in News on 12. Mar, 2009
The Vancouver Sun has decided that women following a vegan diet while pregnant are placing their children at high risk for birth defects. How did they come to this conclusion? Well, a new study reports that women who have low vitamin B12 levels shortly before and after they get pregnant are at significantly greater risk of delivering a child with a neural tube defect. The Vancouver Sun then goes on to say,
“Vegans and women who eat little or no meat, fish, eggs, milk or cheese are at the highest risk, as well as women with stomach or intestinal problems, including inflammatory bowel disease, that keep them from absorbing enough B12.”
The only issue is that the VC arrived at that point on their own. Nowhere in the published scientific study does it even mention the word “vegan”. Furthermore, the authors of the paper have admitted that “the subjects of this study may not have included a single vegan or even a vegetarian. The study was based on blood samples taken about 20 years ago from women in Ireland. This group was chosen precisely because vitamin supplementation and food fortification were rare at that time.”
But the VC had to go and title their story “Vegan diet tied to birth defects” to what? Inject some sensationalism into the study? Scare vegan mums? There are plenty of ways to get B-12 and still maintain a healthy, vegan diet while pregnant. Check out the Vegan Society’s page on those methods here.
To make matters worse, the Vancourver Sun also ran an article based on this that asks if pregnant vegans are as bad as pregnant smokers or drinkers! http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/parenting/archive/2009/03/02/is-eating-vegan-while-pregnant-as-bad-as-smoking-drinking.aspx
Seriously! These “reporters” should be fired!
Gotta protect the advertisers, I reckon. I’m guessing meat and dairy buy a lot of ads in the paper? A lot more ad space than say…Tofurky?
I know a bunch of vegan kids, all healthy, happy, and awesome to offer up as evidence to the contrary of this article. And I actually HAVE evidence to support my claim that vegan kids are healthy, happy, etc.