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Thread: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

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    Boodler pusskins's Avatar
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    Default French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Click here for link to news article on The Guardian website. Also on other news websites.

    Makes me angry that they pick on one thing which is wholly believed to be the cause. Being vegan didn't kill the baby - lack of education/nutritional knowledge did.
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    Default Re: 'French vegans face trial after death of baby fed only on breast milk'

    There was a case where a couple fed their baby soya milk and apple juice, the baby died after 6 weeks as he wasn't fed enough. I really wish they would also add a story about a vegan couple who had brought up healthy children to show that it's just bad parenting that kills babies, not being a vegan.

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    Boodler pusskins's Avatar
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    Default Re: 'French vegans face trial after death of baby fed only on breast milk'

    Exactly. And why are they called 'strict' vegans? In another article, they were called 'militant'. I really shudder at the propaganda involved with the news. Vegan is vegan is vegan.
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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: 'French vegans face trial after death of baby fed only on breast milk'

    The problem wasn't that the parents were vegans or that they didn't give their child animal products. Their daughter died of a pneumonia-related illness, and if there was any sign indicating that this had to with low levels of vitamin A or B12, this should have been brought up, addressed and monitored when the child was alive.

    It was found that she was deficient in two nutrients: Vitamin A and vitamin B12. It's easy to get vitamin A on a vegan diet, eg. from...

    dark green and yellow vegetables
    yellow fruits
    turnip greens
    carrots
    squash
    sweet potatoes
    pumpkin
    apricots
    kale
    spinach
    collard greens
    cantaloupe melon
    apricot
    papaya
    mango
    pea
    broccoli.

    And there are at least 2-3 "schools of thought" re. B12. Some insist that they can get it from plant sources like...

    nori
    algae
    fermented foods
    mushrooms
    chlorella
    turnip greens

    ...while others insist that the simplest, best and most safe way is to get their B12 from fortified foods or supplements. At any rate, the B12 in fortified foods or supplements is vegan; it's produced by a microbial process based on natural bacteria and involving elements of Cobalt, so there's no reason why a vegan wouldn't use such products. Any parent who would experiment with non-proven ways to provide their children with nutrients should follow up the results and make sure the children actually both get and absorb these nutrients.

    A very small percentage of humans have problems with absorbing B12, and there's an ongoing discussion re. what to do in such cases. If only 1 percent of all vegans also suffer from this medical condition, we'd have thousands of cases of vegan B12 malabsorption cases just from this malasbsorption problem alone.

    Fermentation process are just as 'natural' as the the processes required to make yogurt, kefir or beer. And dairy products are often fortified with eg. vitamin D, so non-vegans get part of their nutrients from fortified food as well. 35% of all non-vegans take vitamin B supplements. In some countries, the low levels of B9 in a mixed diet (but usually not on a vegan diet) is so low that fortification of flour is mandatory. Still, some of these people insist that using anything fortified proves that the diet as such is 'unnatural'.

    Most people are deficient in nutrients. This baby was found to be deficient in two - but only after it died.

    "Medical experts told the court in Amiens that the vitamin deficiency could have been caused by an unbalanced diet". Of course it 'could', just like the many deficiencies common in meat eaters diet is caused by their diet.

    "The problem with a vitamin B12 deficiency could be linked to the mother's eating habits."
    I'm sure it could, because millions of non-vegans and vegans are deficient in B12 due to their eating habits and exposure to many B12 inhibitors like sugar, coffee etc.

    These parents also have a 13 year old daughter who was not found to be suffering from any deficiencies. If the parents diet was deficient in essential nutrients, their older daughter would probably have been deficient in these as well, which could indicate that the baby was born with an absorption problem.

    "The couple did not follow the doctor's advice to take the baby to hospital when they went for her nine-month checkup and found she was suffering from bronchitis and was losing weight," he said. Instead they treated her with cabbage poultices, mustard and camphor and washed her with earth and clay instead of giving her baths, the court heard".
    It's obvious that whatever happened, some wrong choices have been made. But ignoring advice from experts if a baby eg. is losing weight isn't a vegan "thing" to do. Neither is treating children with "cabbage poultices, mustard and camphor" or washing them with with "earth and clay".

    On the contrary, vegans usually pay much more attention to nutrients than non-vegans do. But there are some doctors out there who know extremely little about nutrition - particularly about vegan nutrition, and quickly concludes that any health problem a veggie or his/her child may have comes from not eating animal products.

    The parents are still vegan and "are completely aware of the mistake they made," said the father's lawyer, so the chance they'd do something similar again must be close to non-existing.

    If one could put people in jail for having children with nutrient deficiencies, most parents would have been in jail. I don't think their opponents can get anywhere in court with this. They could try to prove that B12 deficiency can cause a pneumonia-related illness. But even if they can, this has nothing to do with the parents being vegan - it has to do with lack of knowledge, not taking precautions, lack of proper warnings from the health personnel, possibly refusing treatment for an ill child and more.

    They mention eggs in that article, but eggs are a very poor source of B12. They contain B12, but the body can't use much of it.

    The French Government may be responsible for two major mistakes here. First of all, the education system should inform their students about what to pay attention to on various diets (standard diets, vegan/vegetarian diets) etc, to prevent such cases from occurring. And if they beforehand (before the death of the baby) think there was a real chance for chronic disease or the life of the child, they should have brought that up earlier. They should have told the parents that they had to prove that the baby got the nutrients it needed (if they insist that this case has to do with vit. A or B12), or else the parents would lose the right to bring up their own child.

    I met a child and her parents on a beach a few years ago - they weren't vegans, but they had realized that the child had a medical condition preventing it from getting B12 from food, which caused a lot of frustration for both the child and it's parents. Such cases are bound to happen in some vegan families as well, which is why both the parents and the local medical personal of course should have looked into this earlier -since B12 is one of the few nutrients vegans should pay extra attention to.

    It's easy got get enough B12 from non-animal sources, and there are many ways to do that - but "cabbage poultices, mustard and camphor" have never been considered as ways to improve B12 status - so all in all, this seems to be a sad case of lack of knowledge from both sides in the conflict.
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    Default Re: 'French vegans face trial after death of baby fed only on breast milk'

    Ugh, that article annoyed me a bit...I mean, as I told my mother...and as you all said it is about making sure your baby gets the right nutrients whether you be vegan/veggie/omni!!!

    Why were the parents not getting enough support? Probably because, like many of us experience, vegans get judged so you are too "scared" to actually ask for any advice!!!

    What is a strict vegan exactly? I don't get what they mean by that!! lol Surely vegans are all the same...lol Maybe they want to make sure you don't think they are just vegetarian, they must lay even more blame on "the vegan" diet...
    "It's not that people suddenly start breeding like rabbits; it's just that people stopped dropping like flies" - population explosion

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    Default Re: 'French vegans face trial after death of baby fed only on breast milk'

    From what I read in the article, I guess the problem is not so much that the parents were vegan and that the kid was malnourished, but that the doctor suggested to take the kid to a hospital immediately and they relied on herbal remedies instead.

    A very sad story.

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    Andy

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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: 'French vegans face trial after death of baby fed only on breast milk'

    Quote Andy_T View Post
    I guess the problem is not so much that the parents were vegan and that the kid was malnourished, but that the doctor suggested to take the kid to a hospital immediately and they relied on herbal remedies instead.
    Sure, but with the widespread lack of knowledge about non-standard diets etc. among some health professionals - combined with little trust in alternative medicine, I can also understand that some parents are skeptical about obediently following any advice they get. Of course they should have acted differently. But - having thought more about this case, I remember having heard sometimes that people assume that even if a mother has low levels of certain nutrients, the breastfed baby will get what it needs. Maybe the parents felt insecure about moving over to solid foods, and for that reason wanted to keep breastfeeding as long as possible. If B12 was the problem, it wouldn't have helped to put the baby on some formula not containing B12 anyway, and after all - literature for parents and scientific reports are full of support for breastfeeding babies from the day they are born.

    The main thing seems to be that the baby got ill, and that they misjudged the ability to heal their baby using non-traditional methods. It must have been a horrible situation for the parents.

    If can should be put in jail for not having added solid foods to their babies' diet before the baby os 11 months, there should have been a law against this. And as far as I know, it's common in Western countries to step in and take a child away from it's parents if they - or at lest threaten with it - if someone thinks that what the parents do with their children's health is hazardous.

    And it's certainly going to be both impossible and meaningless to have laws warning parents about a vegan lifestyle during pregnancy/lactation when American Dietetic Association (ADA) with it's 72000 members - of which most are dietitians etc - have stated this:

    It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes. A vegetarian diet is defined as one that does not include meat (including fowl) or seafood, or products containing those foods. This article reviews the current data related to key nutrients for vegetarians including protein, n-3 fatty acids, iron, zinc, iodine, calcium, and vitamins D and B-12. A vegetarian diet can meet current recommendations for all of these nutrients. In some cases, supplements or fortified foods can provide useful amounts of important nutrients. An evidence-based review showed that vegetarian diets can be nutritionally adequate in pregnancy and result in positive maternal and infant health outcomes. The results of an evidence based review showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease.

    Vegetarians also appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than nonvegetarians. Furthermore, vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates. Features of a vegetarian diet that may reduce risk of chronic disease include lower intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol and higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, soy products, fiber, and phytochemicals.
    The variability of dietary practices among vegetarians makes individual assessment of dietary adequacy essential. In addition to assessing dietary adequacy, food and nutrition professionals can also play key roles in educating vegetarians about sources of specific nutrients, food purchase and preparation, and dietary modifications to meet their needs.
    J Am Diet Assoc. 2009;109:
    1266-1282.


    I (still) think ADA should have added something about B12 in that statement - for reasons that mainly have to do with the general B12 status in a sanitized and denaturalized world. THe extract above could give a false impression that vegans don't need to pay special attention to B12.

    I really hope the French couple have health professionals - and not only lawyers - who contribute to inform the court about the many benefits of both a plant based diet and breastfeeding.

    The parents probably failed at some point (unless the B12 deficiency was minor and have nothing to do with this), but have probably tried harder than most other parents to do the best they can for their baby. Proper absorption of B12 from food requires an intact and functioning stomach, exocrine pancreas, intrinsic factor and more - and unless they can prove that the baby wasn't born with a B12 absorption problem, it will remain unclear forever what the reason for the baby's low B12 levels were... It simply wouldn't help anything if the mother's milk had good B12 levels if the baby couldn't absorb it.

    Since most governments fail to educate young people about how to deal with pregnancy, breast feeding etc. if they live on eg. veg*n diets, how can they expect that upcoming parents know how do always behave correctly? This couple apparently already had one vegan child with no deficiencies/health problems, and may have misjudged the situation with the new child/ ignored the risks involved with having a baby with a lung condition.
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    leedsveg
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    Default Re: 'French vegans face trial after death of baby fed only on breast milk'

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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Neither B12 or vitamin A are known to contribute to pneumonia-related diseases. A a study has clearly suggested that vit. A is not helpful for pneumonia.

    Based in commonly known studies on B12 deficiency and the current population in France, there are probably 1 million babies which either are born or going to be born by females (living in France today) who has a B12 deficiency (of which, around 99% aren't vegans). This is based on the estimate that even if around 6 million babies are born by the current B12 deficient French females, many of the mothers take supplements during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

    Anemia, but not pneumonia, is known to be caused by B12 deficiency - but several health professionals state that most vegans get enough B12 to avoid anemia or neurological damage.

    Certain journalists has turned this into a story that seems to be caused by a vegan diet, but they don't seem to wonder why so all these other vegan babies do not have the problems this French baby had. Maybe it's a good idea to contact the journalists who spread this story about "vegan parents" and ask why they think cases like this are so rare?
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Thank you, Korn. You are so much more literate and erudite than I can ever hope to be. I'm going to pester you in future to write my debates for me! And thank you everybody else, of course. Well written words I perhaps will need in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future when I may have to sadly defend myself to others.
    "You're right, Jackie. The Fonz could beat up Bruce Lee."

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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    This article from yesterday also brings some perspective on health risks involved in bringing up kids on various diets:
    UK Children Still Have Poor Diet



    Children in the UK are risking serious illnesses later in life because of poor diet and nutrition while they are young, an important new study just published[1] on behalf of the Health Supplements Information Service (HSIS) has found.

    [...]

    The research team found that all too frequently, intakes of essential nutrients fell badly short of recommended guidelines and similarly often exceeded the recommended allowances for saturated fat, sugar and salt.

    In particular, the researchers found that iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium and zinc are especially low in some groups. They also point to possible problems with intakes of fibre, omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D as well as fruit and vegetable consumption.
    Those who have looked at this thread, know that eg....

    • "Vitamin B12 concentrations were also measured in a control group of 53 ministers who consumed fish, poultry or red meat on a regular basis. In this group 40 per cent had vitamin B12 • concentrations below the recommended lower limit; this indicates that vitamin B12 deficiency is widespread even among non-vegetarians."

    • "Nearly two out of five people of all ages tested by Dr. Katherine L. Tucker had B12 levels below normal – 17% low enough to cause symptoms of deficiency. "

    • "The typical Western diet often supplies less than adequate amounts of several essential vitamins and minerals."

    • "Recent nutrition surveys in the U.S. have found large numbers of people consume too little calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, and, possibly, copper and manganese."

    • "The statistics from NFCS and NHANES tell much about the diets and state of the nutritional health of the population. [...] They have shown that many American diets do not meet desired dietary standards [14]: many are short of recommended levels for certain nutrients such as calcium, iron, zinc, and folacin, some are short in vitamins A and C"

    • "the dietary fiber consumption of the average American is only one-fifth of what is was one hundred years ago. Many researchers believe that fiber deficiency is directly linked with the rise of chronic health problems in America. While the US Government recommends 25-30 grams of fiber per day, and many doctor's recommend 50 to 60 grams per day, the average American consumes just 10 grams per day."

    • "in one recent U.S. Dept. of Agriculture survey of 20,000 people, not a single person was consuming adequate levels of all the vitamins and minerals. In this study, the percentage of Americans were found to be deficient as follows: 90% in vit. B6, 75% in magnesium, 68% in calcium, 57% in iron, 50% in vitamin A, 45% in vitamin B1, 41% in vitamin C, 34% in vitamin B2 ...and the list goes on."

    • "The matched subjects who ate meat (including poultry and fish) were more than twice as likely to become demented as their vegetarian counterparts (relative risk 2.18, p = 0.065) and the discrepancy was further widened (relative risk 2.99, p = 0.048) when past meat consumption was taken into account."

    • "in a 30-month study of 800 patients in two U.S. hospitals, who were admitted for conditions not normally associated with malnutrition (pneumonia, hip fracture, etc.), blood tests found 55% to be malnourished. The malnourished surgical patients stayed in the hospital an average of five days longer than the adequately nourished patients."

    • "a lot of people are deficient in a lot of nutrients (this is not a study on vegans): Vitamin B6: 80% are deficient. Magnesium: 75% are deficient. Calcium: 68%. Iron: 57%. Vitamin A: 50%. Thiamine (B1): 45%. Vitamin C: 41%. Vitamin B12: 34%. Riboflavin (B2): 34%. Niacin: 33%. Phosphorus: 27%"".

    • "The study most relevant to this thread are based on two government sponsored surveys measuring intake of 13 out of 45 essential nutrients in tens of thousands of people: The "Health and Nutrition Examination Survey" (1971-1974) and "The Nationwide Food Consumption Survey" (1977-1978).
    Nutrient - % who get less than RDA:
    Calcium: 68
    Biotin: 10
    Folacin: 10+
    Chromium: 90
    Iron : 57
    Copper: 85-90
    Magnesium: 75
    Manganese: 20-30
    Phosphorous: 27
    Pantothenic acid: 25
    Vitamin A: 50
    Selenium: 50-60
    Vitamin B1: 45
    Silicon: 30
    Vitamin B2: 34
    Vitamin D: 10
    Vitamin B3: 33
    Vitamin E: 20-40
    Vitamin B6: 80
    Vitamin K: 15
    Vitamin B12 : 34
    Omega 3 fatty acids: 95
    Vitamin C: 41
    Zinc: 35-60"

    • "99% of the American people are deficient in minerals, and a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually results in disease."

    • Deficiency -- U.S. Population

    Magnesium: 75%
    Iron: 58%
    Copper: 81%
    Manganese: 50%
    Chromium: 50%
    Zinc: 67%"

    • "Despite its range of health benefits, many Americans are deficient in the vitamin, coming nowhere near the government's recommended daily allowance of 200 micrograms daily. "The average American gets only 61 percent of the old Recommended Dietary Allowance, which is too low anyway," says James Duke, PhD in Anti-Aging Prescriptions. Part of the reason for the shortfall is that more Americans are choosing to eat more animal foods – which are a poor source of folic acid – rather than folic-acid rich plant foods, like dark green vegetables, legumes, root vegetables and whole grains. Dr. Andrew Weil, in Ask Dr. Weil, recommends the use of supplements to make up for the deficiency. "As many as 90 percent of Americans don't get that protective 400 micrograms in their diet..."

    • " This EPIC-Oxford cohort currently includes the largest number of vegetarians than any comparable study in the world. The study concluded that vegans had the highest intakes of fibre, vitamin B1, folate, vitamin C, vitamin E, magnesium and iron, and the lowest intakes of retinol, vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium and zinc. But this does not necessarily mean they were deficient in any of these nutrients."

    • "Although the ideal dietary ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats is 1:1, it's commonly in the range of 1:20 to 1:50. An estimated 85% - 95% of North Americans are omega-3 deficient. "

    • "46.7% of the females showed sufficient intake for vitamin A, 28.7% for E, 80.7% for B1, 92.7% for B2, 54.7% for B6, 99.3% for niacin, 76.0% for B12, 34.0% for folate, and 54.0% for C". In other words, circa 53% of these people were deficient in vitamin A, circa 71% were vitamin E deficient, and 66% were folate deficient. 24% did not have sufficient levels of B12."

    Unless something else was mentioned, all the studies above was on "most people" - ie. not vegans.

    Compare the numbers above to report from Institute of Nutritional Sciences, University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany: "A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that wholesome vegetarian diets offer distinct advantages compared to diets containing meat and other foods of animal origin. The benefits arise from lower intakes of saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein as well as higher intakes of complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, magnesium, folic acid, vitamin C and E, carotenoids and other phytochemicals. "



    The really bad news for meat eaters is that the alarmingly high number of deficient people quoted above are not based on people who avoid supplements.
    49% of the U.S. population (44% of males, 53% of females) have been reported to take supplements. Most likely, these studies were based on people with the same ratio of supplement users. In other words - the number would have been even more dramatic if they didn't take supplements. Yet some omnivores are both skeptical to vegans who use supplements when needed or assume that they - unlike vegans - aren't deficient.




    I don't think the fact that they have previously and successfully brought up a child as a vegan will necessarily prove to be a good defence.
    Not "necessarily", but one of their two children had no deficiencies and the other one had two, they may have had a generally healthier levels of more nutrients than the average population. Now, it doesn't help the little baby if she weren't deficient in most nutrients if one of the deficiencies caused serious illness/was life threatening.

    This study may be relevant to their case:
    The 63% greater mortality in vitamin A–treated children was based on small numbers of children (13 in the vitamin A group compared with 8 in the placebo group) and was not statistically significant (P = 0.28). The lack of any beneficial effect and a trend toward increased mortality after vitamin A treatment is consistent with the results of community vitamin A supplementation trials in which there was no apparent beneficial effect (2), or with studies in Indonesia (3) and Nepal (4), in which high-dose vitamin A supplementation increased symptoms of respiratory illness (3) and mortality in infants (4).
    As I've written many times, vegans - and vegan parents in particular - should pay special attention to B12. This is of course of major importance if a child shows any signs of bad health. And although low B12 levels aren't commonly known to cause pneumonia, B12 is needed for creation of red blood cells. If someone already has a lung problem, B12 is extra important. Anemia is lack of red blood cells, and red blood cells bring oxygen from lungs to the body's other cells.

    I'm sure most vegans already know that B12 is THE nutrient to pay extra attention to for people on a plant based diet, but some people suggest that most vegans don't need to worry about anemia or nervous system damage. True or not... in the special case where a lung inflammation occurs in a person with low B12 levels, these two conditions together could probably influence in a negative direction. But I'm not a doctor or dietician, and don't know this case - so I'm not saying that this is what happened on this particular case. If I would have been a doctor and seen a baby with lung problems on a plant based diet in our "B12 unfriendly" would, I would have required a B12 test ASAP. The French health personnel doesn't seem to have done that, and who knows - maybe the case is an attempt to cover up for not dealing with the situation the way they should have done it?
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    leedsveg
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Of course parents have responsibility, and without knowing much about the situation, it also seems that they have made a big mistake.

    If something is considered a criminal act, there must also be laws defining these acts as illegal. It's not illegal not to give kids supplements as such, but neglect is. AFAIK, if the local health personnel in most countries don't just ask parents politely do treat their children better if they think there's a serious risk of death or illness - they make it clear that if they don't follow their instruction, the child will be taken away from them - and follow up the situations. I haven't seen that this happened here, or read that deficiency tests have been taken while the baby was alive. As a result of this, the local health personnel may not have taken the steps they should to prevent this from happening. Unless there are thing we don't know, the parents seems to not have taken these steps either.

    Some claim that the parents were "forbidding" the children to have animal products. That's one way of seeing it, but the word "forbid" could be used about many other groups as well. Parents are actually "forbidding" their children to do things they think is unhealthy or wrong all the time, so the way this is presented by the press, the whole story has a rather anti-vegan bias, while the sad outcome of this situation may not have anything to do with veganism at all. If they would stop giving the baby only breast milk, but added eg. products that contained no B12 or false B12, the situation could have been even worse - earlier.

    If my relatively blind guess in an earlier post that the baby's situation may have been influenced by a combination of low B12 levels and a pneumonia-related illness, maybe the baby's life could have been saved if someone told them about the importance of B12, and either gave the baby a B12 injection or oral/liquid B12. Or - they could have tested the mother for B12 and added high/therapeutic amounts of B12 to her diet so the baby would get it from breastfeeding. I have no idea why the baby was given only breast milk at that age.

    In a country where little or no information is handed out about which nutrients to pay attention to on standard/vegan/other diets, one cannot expect that all parents always know what to do. But one should expect that the local health personnel would gather the information they needed, and take the steps needed to save the baby's life. If they failed to do so, they could possibly also be charged for being responsible for the sad outcome of the situation. This makes it kind of convenient for them to present the parents as the (only) sinners here.
    For what I know - these parents could have been both ignorant, stubborn and impossible to communicate with, and I don't have ay opinion about a case I don't know. But from I've seen so far, it's a little strange that nobody intervened with the situation in a proper way if there were health or life/death risks involved.

    Maybe France have different laws than other countries, and that they just will leave a dysfunctional or ignorant (if that's what this is about) family home with their child even if this may mean that the baby will die from it's health problems? I doubt it, but I don't know. But there are many stories about ignorant doctors which more or less ascribe all health problems to eg. not eating meat. Due to doctor's well-known lack of knowledge about diet and nutrition, one should - to some degree - expect their patients to not always follow their advice. I was told by a doctor once, after having been traveling in Asia some years ago and gotten sick from food I ate, that I became sick because I didn't eat meat. Most people know that if I would have been eating meat in this area, the likelihood of getting sick would have been much higher. Even regular meat eaters often avoid meat in such areas.

    From what I've read about this very sad case, the trial in court ends today. Whatever the truth behind this story is, I hope their 13 year old daughter - a 'rare' child, because she according to the press had no deficiencies at all - won't suffer both from losing her baby sister and have her parents sent to jail.

    ETA: I've seen several today lately agreeing that this doesn't seem to be a problem caused by being a vegan, but about not giving the baby a proper treatment. It has been mentioned that using camphor to treat children under 36 months isn't recommendable due to respiratory issues this can cause, and also that the book they got their medical advice from was from 1952 and - not surprisingly - outdated.

    http://haute-normandie.france3.fr/in...?onglet=videos
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    leedsveg
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    If they're bringing up children on a 'vegan diet' and they don't know the importance of B12, then maybe they shouldn't be bringing up children?
    As you know, I agree that vegans need to be aware of the importance of B12. One of the things I'm trying to say is that governments/educations systems in most countries should educate young people about both alternative diets (their possible pros and cons) and alternative treatment methods (and their possible pros and cons). Otherwise there will be more stories like this, where people seeking 'alternative' information may end up with outdated books from the 50s with a content that not even the authors, if they are still alive, agree in. I saw today that the author of this couple's old book is alive and met up in court to confirmed that it was outdated, but of course too late.

    It's also hard for me to understand that someone can leave a child, a family... or anyone in a life threatening situation just like that (if they were aware of what this could lead to). Did they really just suggest that the child should be sent to hospital, and when the parents the parents refused, the health personnel more or less just accepted - if they knew about the risks involved? That's not how it works here.

    If the parents were ignorant/fanatic about eg. B12 issues, why didn't they tell them that if they want to keep their child, they need to take a proper B12 test first? Children are taken from their parents on a regular basis for neglect in many countries, so since they didn't do that in this case, and maybe took the deficiency tests only after the baby died, this could be a case where both the parents and the health personal were ignorant about B12 and the efficiency of the methods in that old book.

    Not only are regular, public schools lacking education/info about important health issues, but both doctors and other health professionals admit that their education involves little, proper information about alternative diets and alternative medicine. That is, in my opinion, a big mistake which can have fatal consequences, which is one reason I brought up that topic (about possible incorrect/incomplete action and info from the local health authorities.

    I know this topic has been discussed for some years, and also that this situation is slowly changing in some countries. It will be more common that regular doctors and other health professionals will know how to deal with cases like this. One good side effect of this is that all those who currently don't trust regular doctors (sometimes for a good reason), may start to work together with them instead of against them.

    Since the 'standard diet' is are associated with all the health problems it is, and since health officials in many countries still recommend standard diets - one should expect a certain level of healthy resistance against eating meat and potatoes from educated people. That resistance needs to be dealt with in a proper way if cases like this shall be reduced.

    http://www.medicinenet.com/pneumonia/article.htm :
    Over 3 million people develop pneumonia each year in the United States. Over a half a million of these people are admitted to a hospital for treatment. Although most of these people recover, approximately 5% will die from pneumonia. Pneumonia is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.
    5% of 3 mill. people... that's more than 400 people dying of pneumonia every day - in USA alone. Children are one of the mentioned risk groups. I don't know how much these parents could have done differently, but they certainly should have addressed the two deficiencies). I doubt that the families of the 400+ people who die from pneumonia every day in USA are charged for having neglected their parents/children etc.

    If these numbers are correct, and if vegans have the same pneumonia rate and pneumonia death/survival rate as others, many vegans and non-vegans also die from pneumonia every week. If 1% of all pneumonia patients are vegans, that's 1500 vegans dying from pneumonia every year in USA. Unfortunately they could face a slightly higher risk of having their pneumonia associated with their diet even if standard diets in many ways are known to be less healthy than balanced vegan diets. Maybe this phenomenon affects this French couple as well.
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Sure, but I think what happens when journalists write about vegan related topics and the generally high level of assumptions among people who don't know much about vegan nutrition (or deficiencies among omnivores) is a very important topic.

    When a food product is found to be harmful, it's pulled away from the market. Some people say that these parents had read the wrong book at the wrong time, but literature with misleading info isn't pulled from the market. So, if some expert have found that X may case Y, but most parents know that... can we put them in jail for that? If yes, should other parents who also have children with deficiencies leading to serious disease been put in jail?

    Like it or not, but IMO these and similar topics are somehow more important (for the future) than this isolated case. If exposing children to foodstuff that significantly may increase the risk of getting serious or lethal diseases, the meat eating world is in trouble.
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    Cakeaholic rainbow's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    I'm currently living in France and have found this story deeply depressing. According to today's Le Monde, the parents have been found guilty of neglect and/or depriving a child of food, and have been sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment. Much of the news coverage did not even mention that the poor baby had a respiratory illness, indicating that it was a vegan diet that caused the death of the baby. No; it was ignorant parenting, both in terms of not knowing how to feed a baby of that age and in not taking appropriate medical advice when the child fell ill. The court acknowledged that the parents had acted consistently in what they believed to be the baby's best interests, that their love for their child was not in question, and nor was the validity of their personal dietary choices, but in this instance, they failed to provide adequately for the baby's needs, resulting in the death of their child, and for this they have been punished. It is desperately sad, both for the child and the family involved, and for the wider stereotypes that have been nurtured by this story. I can assert that it is most certainly NOT impossible or even difficult to be vegan in France, in terms of access to adequate nutrition. But it IS difficult in terms of access to information, and very difficult in terms of integration into social situations, and I fear that these latter elements may have been what led the parents to make such unfortunate choices. Alas, the very negative reporting of the story is only likely to exacerbate the isolation and alienation felt by France's vegan minority.
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    The whole thing is so sad! I hope the 13 year old child has other family who can take care of her
    "If you don't have a song to sing you're okay, you know how to get along humming" Waltz (better than fine) - Fiona Apple

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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    I agree, twinkle and rainbow. THis will be a long post, because this is the most important case involving health and alternative medicine (at least involving vegans) that I'm aware of.

    How should a society, legally, deal with parents that that have picked up a book from 1952 about treating diseases with methods most people don't believe in today - if they assume that the information in that book is reliable and that no health authorities knowing about their cases stops them from using their alternative methods? This was an old book, but there's also new literature on various topics which - according to other literature about the same topics, is misleading and potential dangerous.

    I read about the outcome of the trial here:
    Joel and Sergine Le Moaligou convicted of causing child's death
    French couple who refused to take their sick and undernourished daughter to hospital were sentenced to five years in jail
    ....and also found a YouTube clip about the case here.

    Since picking up a wrong book from a library or bookstore may represent more of a thread/danger for people's health than getting some poisonous from a grocery store, a society needs to define who the "sinner" is in cases like this. Bad food is pulled from the market. Books which potentially are dangerous for a lot of people aren't. Dietary advice both from alternative and mainstream sources is freely distributed in the name of freedom of speech. We need this freedom of speech if we want our knowledge about health, diet, politics and more to evolve and improve. Freedom of speech doesn't come without a price. People buying cigarettes will see a warning that the cigarettes may harm their health, but we don't have warnings on books.

    And lots of health experts got their education in a period when their professors knew a lot less about the the link between diet and lethal health conditions than we do today. These doctors are still, freely, distributing their advice. They aren't criminalized. Should we criminalize people who follow poor advice from books or health professionals? This seems to be what happened in this case.

    According to the article I linked to above, "State attorney, Anne-Laure Sandretto, had called for a 10-year sentence against the couple who were convinced they could cure their daughter's pneumonia with traditional remedies. She also suggested the mother's vegan diet could have contributed to the death of the child, though this was argued over by experts giving evidence in the case."

    First of all "could have contributed" isn't a valid reason to put someone in jail. If someone really think that the ten thousands of dietitians in American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada who says that "well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence" are wrong and that the French state attorney is right, they should prove it.

    Refusing to take the baby to hospital seems to be at the core of this situation. But this part may be even more important:

    Dr Stéphane Bernard told the court at Amiens in northern France how the couple had refused to take Louise immediately to hospital after seeing him in January 2008, two months before she died.

    "I suspected she was suffering from pneumonia and told them to go straight to casualty for an x-ray and blood test. I told them quite clearly it was pneumonia, which is more serious than bronchitis because the lungs were infected," he said.

    "I didn't prescribe any drugs because in my mind it was obvious they'd go to casualty. I didn't even weigh the child as I was convinced they'd do it at hospital."

    Another doctor, who saw Louise in December 2007, said she was in good health and denied links previously made in court between her death and the mother's vegan diet.
    "I saw an eight month old child breastfed by her vegan mother and found her in perfect health," he said.
    Even if "only" 5% of all pneumonia cases causes death, that's 5% too much. This seems to be about the real risks involved with wanting freedom of speech. We can't have a society which allows books to be published containing advice which may have a lethal outcome for their readers, but punish those who follow their advice, can we?

    Is the problem that these or other parents don't spend enough time on Google or in libraries comparing conflicting opinions; facts and arguments from both sides, and come to a conclusion that's more educated and valid that what can be found from each of the sources? Should we expect parents to be capable of this?

    And what if these parents actually did google eg. B12 and pneumonia, or Vitamin A and pneumonia - or B12 and immune system? If the matches coming up didn't suggest that vit. B12 or vit. A deficiency may cause the pneumonia the doctor suspect that the baby were suffering from, can the parents be criminalized for having a child with two deficiencies... in a world where almost everybody have nutrient deficiencies? Even if we know that most people have one or more deficiencies, due to how information is spread and how internet works, there could even be articles out there somewhere, claiming that nobody needs to take supplements or worry about any vitamins. I read recently that most of the

    And - is the problem that the parents didn't want any kind of supplements, even in a situation where a disease called for it? I read recently that most of the 35 tonnes of vitamin B 12 produced in 2008 (many times the amount needs of the whole of humanity goes to ... feed livestock. So if the parents for some reason would be against using supplements, they may have refused to eat meat as well even if they were meat eaters. Animals are often given cobalt, iodine and other supplements, and milk, margarine, cereals etc. are regularly fortified.

    Now, if there is a link between low B12 and increased pneumonia risk, many of the deaths caused by pneumonia must be overlapping the millions of cases of meat eaters' with B12 deficiency, and since 15-20% of the Western population are under 15, and children are one of the known pneumonia risk groups, many of the people dying from pneumonia both have low B12 levels and are children. The percentage of the parent's being prosecuted for their children's diseases is probably around zero.


    If I had a sick child, and someone would tell me that my child's health problems could be caused by our diet, I would - like most people - have given it supplements even if would have had some phony idea that supplements was something that generally shouldn't be used. I was given multivitamins as a child myself, and give my vegan son B12 regularly - for reasons explained before. But parents - vegan or not - aren't put in jail if their child has a deficiency in two vitamins. Not because there of course aren't enough prisons to house these billions of people, but because freedom of speech may lead to lots of parents following advice from experts and "experts" they shouldn't have followed - and other reasons. Both mis - and well-informed - parents and doctors may not realize the seriousness of a health problem, until it's too late, but we can expect each and every parent to double check all the information they get, compare conflicting conclusions and build up a more balanced and educated repertoire of health related knowledge than the authors of the books they read have built up. This is unrealistic for a number of reasons. These topics are so complicated that millions, if not billions of parents simply don't have the capacity, motivation or background knowledge to gather and understand/interpret such the information they come across.

    This is a case of parents having been giving potentially dangerous advice from literature. But they tried to find more info about their child condition, and were focused on health issues, although following the outdated book they had a fatal result. With 250,000 total deaths per year from iatrogenic ("induced in a patient by a physician's activity, manner, or therapy. Used especially to pertain to a complication of treatment") causes in US alone, we'll see more and more parents gathering their own information in the future.

    The info they find may be very useful, but in a non-totalitarian society they may also find outdated books - or books written by fanatics of all kinds. The risk of finding advice that may be harmful is absolutely real.

    If having children with a deficiency should be criminalized most meat eaters would be in jail. There are loads of healthy vegans parents and children out there, and although this definitely isn't an attempt of criminalizing a diet, it seems that prejudice against different thinking people eating different food is part of this.

    Since a society can't require or expect that all parents are intelligent enough to evaluate all medical situations, there either be a system which follows up a child and it's parents if there's a disease situation with a risk of child's permanent health damage or death or one sadly have to accept that freedom of speech in this context may have fatal health consequences for both adults and kids.

    The parents cancelled an appointment with their doctor - in a case where a doctor already had said that this was pneumonia - a disease which may have a lethal outcome. The parents have admitted that they didn't realize the seriousness of the situation. Did the doctor realise the seriousness of the situation? Has s/he admitted that if a child have pneumonia - a disease where children are one of the risk groups - and a disease that may have a lethal outcome, some bells should be ringing when the parents didn't show up?

    The baby died 8 days after the cancelled appointment. From what I've read, it wasn't the doctor or someone from the local child welfare institution who showed up at the parents house - it was the parents who called paramedics.

    In situations like this, children should IMO be legally protected by all means. If a child is hurt in car accident, eg. bleeding severely, it shouldn't matter if the child's parents - when paramedics arrive - claim that they don't think that it needs any treatment from a doctor or hospital. If they say that they shall treat the kid with cabbage when they come home, they should be ignored. They should be told that their child is legally protected against lack of knowledge on the parents' side. This is (or was, until I heard about this case) how I believe laws to function in most countries.

    It seems that either France is an exception here, or that that a bell should have ringed (followed by immediate action) when these parents cancelled an appointment with their doctor, since a suspicion - or knowledge - that the child had a disease which could end it's life already existed.

    We should expect doctors / the local child welfare to take the needed steps in situations like this, but not that all parents are educated enough to distinguish between useful and outdated or non-serious advice.

    So - even if the parents already had refused to take the child to the hospital, and Dr Stéphane Bernard "told them quite clearly it was pneumonia" two months before the baby died, no bell was ringing in the (same??) doctor's office when the parents cancelled their appointment with their doctor seven weeks later. Is there rally no communication between the doctor and the hospital? I hope this raises the question about who (parents or doctors) we should expect to take the needed steps in cases like this.

    There are parents with drug problems, mental conditions, fanatical beliefs and plain ignorance whose decisions may harm their kids. I don't know if French laws don't protect children against their parents' decisions when needed, or that the local health professionals didn't take the needed steps to protect the child against death from a disease that may have a lethal outcome. Of course a society can't punish parents for not spending enough time on Google. These parents, who have admitted that they didn't realise the seriousness of the situation may now be put in jail. I thought the idea of using prisons was to force criminals to "learn a lesson", so they won't repeat their mistakes. But is there anything to be achieved, for a mother and father who lost a child, by spending 5 years in a prison cell, that they haven't already learned by seeing their little child die in front of them?


    And - with the many deaths per year from iatrogenic causes, often as a case of wrong decisions that have been made by health professionals... do we actually have a policy saying that if a doctor - who have spent years on learning about health and medicine - does a mistake when evaluating a life/death situation, he can go free, but if a parents make similar mistakes, they are put in prison?

    Isn't the core of all this that since we can't expect that uneducated people are capable of taking the right decisions in life/death cases like this, they shouldn't be allowed to take these decisions - and that in this case in France, they were allowed to do so, and now are put in jail for having done so?
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    It would be a bad situation for ANY baby, vegan or not, if it has pneumonia or bronchitis, and the parents don't take the baby to get medical care....

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    Cakeaholic rainbow's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Yes. I think the case was fairly simple in the end - the problem wasn't the vegan diet but the naive belief in herbal remedies as an adequate substitute for medical care. What makes the case not just tragic for those concerned, but problematic for the entire vegan community, was the irresponsible and misleading reporting of the case in the media, where an emphasis was placed on the vegan diet and the cause of death - pneumonia - was mentioned little, if at all. Anti-vegan prejudices, stereotypes, and the reiteration of animal products as a necessity for health which helps to placate the guilty consciences of omnis and thus allows them to justify their behaviour to themselves, all came to the fore in the reporting of this case.
    I am not surprised that the doctor did not call the hospital to follow up on the baby's care, as doctors have very heavy workloads and just don't have time to ensure that their patients follow their advice. Obviously, the hospital did not contact the doctor, as the parents never went to the hospital. The cancelled appointment two months later might not have rung any alarm bells, if it was assumed that the baby's pneumonia had already been treated at the hospital and that all was now well. I don't think the medical services are to blame here. The parents made a well-intentioned but naive and foolish mistake, with fatal consequences. Having already served some time in custody while awaiting trial, they may already be eligible for parole, but the length of the jail sentence will be the lesser punishment compared to the agony of losing their child. I just hope, for the sake of their other daughter, that they have learned their lesson and are able to resume family life with a better understanding of how to reconcile sincere convictions with safe practice.
    Live and let live

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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Quote rainbow View Post
    Yes. I think the case was fairly simple in the end - the problem wasn't the vegan diet but the naive belief in herbal remedies as an adequate substitute for medical care. What makes the case not just tragic for those concerned, but problematic for the entire vegan community, was the irresponsible and misleading reporting of the case in the media, where an emphasis was placed on the vegan diet and the cause of death - pneumonia - was mentioned little, if at all.
    Well, even if many doctors think that a natural remedy often are a good choice for certain conditions, they should of course have had a proper diagnosis much earlier and a treatment that would have saved the little girl's life.

    The sad truth is that many die of pneumonia even when following the standard diagnosis and treatment suggestions. And In the articles before the trial, bronchitis and a "pneumonia-related illness" was mentioned. After the trial, we could read that a doctor said that he told them "quite clearly" it was pneumonia. A little googling suggests that the remedies the parents tried were (and so some degree still are) suggested as useful as alternative methods or home-remedies for bronchitis. This makes me wonder if "quite clearly" may not have been clear enough.

    Since a serum B12 test could show good B12 results even if the B12 molecules in the blood were inactive analogues, an MMA test would probably be more important here (both should have taken in cases where there's a suspicion of B12 deficiency)- If the parents were skeptical about blood tests (eg. because of the traumatic effect it may have on the child), MMA levels could have been determined by taking urine tests. Were any MMA tests suggested in this case? I don't know - but they should have been suggested. If the baby already had low volume of red blood cells, maybe a MMA test would probably also been better since no blood is taken from the baby in such cases?

    The more I think of this case, the more ridiculous it seems. From the last article I saw, this couple followed advice from a book from 1972 (and not 1952, as stated by another source). Live video with the author explaining that outdatedness of (some of?) the info in the book. But that's somehow irrelevant info from a legal perspective. If you google bronchitis today, you may find much of the same kind of advice. II've also seen the concern that the baby didn't get enough protein mentioned. But the book that launched the idea that vegans needed to combine various types of food in one meal to get sufficient protein is older than the book they followed - and equally outdated (also according to it's author). So why has protein been brought up in this case?


    Anyway, the baby didn't get any solid foods, so the problem must either be that the mother's breast milk was protein deficient (if protein actually was an issue relevant to this case), or that the baby was exclusively breastfed for too long...if protein has any relevance in this case at all. Anyway, exclusively breastfeeding babies for more than 6 months has nothing to do with veganism, and I was surprised to learn today that the worldwide average length of breastfeeding each child is about 4 years. The World Health Organization and many others suggest to add other food than breast milk after six months. If the French health authorities think that exclusively breastfeeding a baby for more than 6 months represents a health risk/protein deficiency risk for the baby, they should at least have a warning against this, and take action if they find that a baby older than 6 months is exclusively breastfed.

    I don't know if any countries see exclusive breastfeeding for more than 6 months a health risk - I just know that it's common to add solid food when the baby is 6 months old. The breastfeeding article on Wikipedia suggests that "Most mothers can breastfeed for six months or more, without the addition of infant formula or solid food". According to breastfeedingbasics.com, "Mother's milk will supply all the nutrients your baby needs for at least the first six months of life". Again - this has nothing to do with veganism, but none of these two sites (which the parents may or may not have visited) set a clear upper limit for how long a baby should be exclusively breast fed. Maybe both these sites and the French state should define a clear upper limit for breastfeeding - but since they haven't, the long period of exclusive breastfeeding as such can't be used to put parents in jail.

    Neither can living on a vegan diet, of course - knowing about all the health benefits of a plant based diet. And regarding the immune system issue, antioxidants are important here. One of the benefits of a vegan diet is that it's so rich in antioxidants. And what if the reason the parents kept breastfeeding was that breastfeeding actually is known to boost the babies' immune systems?

    From what I've seen, these parents tried harder than many other parents to help their child with what they considered the best possible methods.

    I don't know if the parents have been appealing against their sentence, but lots of the stuff which has been written seems based on myths and assumptions. Some of these writings may be added by journalists, so it would be interesting too see what the court's actual explanation for the 5 years is. Even if this case isn't really about vegan vs. non-vegan, I'd like to get in touch with this couple.If anyone reading this knows how I can do that, please send me a PM pr use the Contact US link at the bottom of the page.
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    baffled harpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    If the French health authorities think that exclusively breastfeeding a baby for more than 6 months represents a health risk/protein deficiency risk for the baby, they should at least have a warning against this, and take action if they find that a baby older than 6 months is exclusively breastfed.


    Don't know whether it's already been mentioned, or whether it's true, but this article suggests that the French tend to be anti breast feeding as well as anti vegan, and that that was a factor in the way the case was reported too: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...th?INTCMP=SRCH

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    To be honest, it bewilders me if somebody suggests that breast-feeding a kid until 12 months of age constitutes dangerous neglect.

    I understand that there are possibilities of deficiencies if the mother does not have enough milk, but to state that this is a dangerous practice per se I can not understand.

    Best regards,
    Andy

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    Cakeaholic rainbow's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    I doubt the parents will contest the sentence as they have already been released from prison, with part of the sentence being discounted and the remainder having been served prior to the trial.
    Live and let live

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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Quote Andy_T View Post
    To be honest, it bewilders me if somebody suggests that breast-feeding a kid until 12 months of age constitutes dangerous neglect.
    I don't think any educated will warn against breastfeeding for 12 months, and the opinions I've seen about exclusively breastfeeding a child for more than 6 months haven't contained any clear warnings against it - although adding solid food around 6 months usually is recommended.

    Here's what some trusted institutions says about pneumonia and breast feeding in general, which could suggest that *not* breast feeding a child exclusively may increase the pneumonia risk:


    WHO on Pneumonia (Fact sheet N°331, November 2010)
    http://www.who.int/mediacentre/facts.../en/index.html

    Risk factors
    While most healthy children can fight the infection with their natural defences, children whose immune systems are compromised are at higher risk of developing pneumonia. A child's immune system may be weakened by malnutrition or undernourishment, especially in infants who are not exclusively breastfed.

    [...]

    Prevention
    Preventing pneumonia in children is an essential component of a strategy to reduce child mortality. Immunization against Hib, pneumococcus, measles and whooping cough (pertussis) is the most effective way to prevent pneumonia.

    Adequate nutrition is key to improving children's natural defences, starting with exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life. In addition to being effective in preventing pneumonia, it also helps to reduce the length of the illness if a child does become ill.

    Addressing environmental factors such as indoor air pollution (by providing affordable clean indoor stoves, for example) and encouraging good hygiene in crowded homes also reduces the number of children who fall ill with pneumonia.

    [...]

    WHO response
    In 2009, WHO and UNICEF launched the Global action plan for the prevention and control of pneumonia (GAPP). The aim is to accelerate pneumonia control with a combination of interventions to protect, prevent, and treat pneumonia in children with actions to:

    protect children from pneumonia include promoting exclusive breastfeeding and hand washing, and reducing indoor air pollution;
    • prevent pneumonia with vaccinations;
    • treat pneumonia are focused on making sure that every sick child has access to the right kind of care -- either from a community-based health worker, or in a health facility if the disease is severe -- and can get the antibiotics and oxygen they need to get well.
    NIH (National Institutes of Health): "Pneumonia - children - discharge"
    http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/e...ons/000011.htm

    Make sure your child drinks enough:

    Offer breast milk or formula if your child is younger than 12 months.
    Offer whole milk if your child is older than 12 months.
    UNICEF ("Pneumonia - the forgotten killer of children"):
    http://www.unicef.org/mdg/mortalitym...f_Children.pdf

    EXCLUSIVE BREASTFEEDING
    It is widely recognized that children who are exclusively breastfed develop
    fewer infections and have less severe illnesses than those who are not.
    Breast milk contains the nutrients, antioxidants, hormones and antibodies
    needed by the child to survive and develop, and specifically for a child’s
    immune system to function properly.
    Yet only about one third of infants in
    the developing world are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of
    life.

    Infants under six months old who are not breastfed are at five times
    the risk of dying from pneumonia as infants who are exclusively breastfed
    for the first six months of life. Furthermore, infants 6 - 11 months old who
    are not breastfed are also at an increased risk of dying from pneumonia
    compared to those who are breastfed.
    The importance of nutritious food is generally known for the importance of a good immune system, but neither of these documents don't mention vitamin A or B12.
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    As confirmed by many studies (like this one): Vegans have lower vitamin B12 concentrations, but higher folate concentrations, than vegetarians and omnivores. Some studies show very high percentages of folate deficiencies in omnivores - and very high percentages of B12 deficiencies in vegans.

    And although low B12 levels aren't commonly known to cause bronchitis, or pneumonia - I came across a site called oohoi.com that stated that "a study was done on 30 elderly and it was found that those deficient in Vitamin B12 were unable to manufacture antibodies to the pneumonia virus compared to those with adequate supplies of B12." No sources were mentioned, but if this if low B12 levels were the cause of the antibodies issue, as opposed to both problems being a result of another condition, this is a phenomenon which suggests that the millions of B12 deficient people out there (at least elders) will have a reduced built in resistance against pneumonia - yet another reason we all should pay attention to our B12 levels.

    The following info could also be relevant when comparing the pneumonia risk rate for omnivores vs the risk rate for vegans - again, at least for elderly:
    Folic acid helps prevent pneumonia


    Researchers at the Tohoku University School of Medicine now report that supplementation with folic acid is highly effective in preventing pneumonia. Their clinical trial involved 15 institutionalized patients who had been diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia on at least two separate occasions during the preceding two years. The patients, with an average age of 71 years, were matched with a control group of 12 healthy 72-years-olds with no history of pneumonia.
    The researchers measured baseline levels of folic acid, vitamin-B12, vitamin-B6, and homocysteine in the two groups. Thirteen of the 15 in the pneumonia group were found to be deficient in folic acid (average plasma level of 2.4 ng/mL versus 8.3 ng/mL in the controls). The patients also had excessively high homocysteine levels (18.2 micromol/L versus 6.4 micromol/L for the controls). There were no significant differences in vitamin B6 or vitamin B12 levels. However, the patients took significantly longer to swallow – average of 6 seconds versus 1.8 seconds for the controls.
    The patients then received a 5-mg folic acid tablet twice a day for eight weeks. At the end of this period their homocysteine and folate (folic acid) levels were normal and their swallowing reflex had improved to 1.7 seconds (equivalent to the controls). The supplementation was continued for two years during which time not a single case of pneumonia was observed. The researchers conclude that folic acid supplementation may prevent the incidence of pneumonia and improve swallowing function in older people.
    Sato, Emi, et al. Folate deficiency and risk of pneumonia in older people. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Vol. 49, December 2001, pp. 1739-40
    Looking at these two cases together, although the B12 levels in the subjects didn't seem to be associated with the risk of developing pneumonia risk as such, I'm sure patients who already have developed pneumonia would have been better off if they had good B12 levels. I have been wondering why so few cases of pneumonia among vegans have been mentioned and discussed in the many reports I've seen, but maybe the explanation simply is that vegans' usually good levels of B9 (folate/folic acid) means that we are less prone to pneumonia than others.

    If the French girl's pneumonia case was the bacterial version of pneumonia, it could most likely have been treated at home with antibiotics. THe problem may be that the doctor weren't sure that this actually was pneumonia combined with the parents not wanting to send the baby to the hospital for X-ray etc:
    "I suspected she was suffering from pneumonia and told them to go straight to casualty for an x-ray and blood test. I told them quite clearly it was pneumonia, which is more serious than bronchitis because the lungs were infected," he said.
    According to this site, "Pneumonia is diagnosed in about 4 percent of children in the US each year, with the highest rates in children under age 12 months old." And according to this site about pneumonia and many other sites, misdiagnosis is a major cause of death.

    The cow's milk/mucus issue is also something I wonder if is something that has been looked into in this case. Although some sources state that milk won't cause a mucus problem in healthy people, there are many (non-vegans) out there who warn against using dairy products for people with pneumonia:
    http://www.ehow.com/way_5751694_food...cus-chest.html

    What Foods to Avoid When Mucus Is In Your Chest
    Chest mucus lines the walls of your respiratory system. This mucus contains antiseptic enzymes that help protect you against infections, bronchial blockage and congestion. When we become ill, this chest mucus (phlegm) is produced in larger amounts and immunoglobulins work to fight invading or foreign bodies. This mucus attaches itself to the virus or bacteria, and is expelled when you cough. Excessive mucus is usually caused by infections such as bronchitis, the flu and pneumonia. If you are experiencing an increase of mucus, there are several foods you should avoid.

    Dairy Products
    Dairy products contain protein molecules called "casein" that are known to cause mucus secretions. Casein can be very hard to digest. When you are producing large amounts of mucus, try to avoid products such as milk, butter, cheese, cottage cheese, cream and yogurt, as they are the most mucus-creating foods in the human diet. Dairy products also contain a sugar called lactose that creates mucus as well, according to health site Detox.net.

    Meat
    Meats that come from animal flesh can produce excess mucus in the chest, almost as much as dairy products. It is a good idea to avoid meat, fish, eggs and fowl products when you're sick. Meat products cause less respiratory distress than dairy products, since they lack the lactose found in milk.

    Soy
    Consuming too much soy can cause more chest mucus than any other food derived from plants. Trading meats and dairy for soy can cause unhealthy mucus to build up in your chest and body. Try to use soy sparingly if you are already sick by avoiding foods such as tofu, soybeans and tempeh until you are feeling better.
    "Dr. Benjamin Spock, author of Baby and Child Care, wrote in 1998, "Cow’s milk is not recommended for a child when he is sick—or when he is well, for that matter. Dairy products may cause more mucus complications and cause more discomfort with upper respiratory infections.""

    Another reason not to suddenly introduce cow's milk to an ill baby with a mucus/lung problem is that one wouldn't know if she would have a milk allergy or lactose intolerance.

    The only people I've heard about who suggest an exclusive milk diet for broncho-pneumonia are from and outdated book from.... France:
    Several French writers, as Serre and Eloy, advocate an exclusive milk diet, giving from three pints to three quarts daily, to be sipped in small quantities every hour or two. They rely upon the diuretic effect of the milk, and give it in any form most agreeable to the patient.
    The recommendations on this site - from a book from 1905 - can't be generally accepted as valid advice for any babies though: "The diet should consist of such articles as meat juice, predigested milk, and egg albumin. Stimulation is early required and in considerable quantity. Brandy or whisky sweetened with a little sugar and cold water should be systematically given, especially to young children, who are unable to make their want of drink known. Hot milk and Vichy, in the proportion of one part of Vichy to two of milk for older children, or half-and-half for young infants, may have the effect of loosening the tenacious mucus and easing the cough."


    I don't know if the mother were taking anything that could influence her B12 levels. Maybe the parents had seen this report, about 6 vegan children aged 7 to 14 who had been living on a vegan diet 4 to 10 years:

    "...their serum vitamin B12 levels and other data (red blood cell count, hematocrit, hemoglobin, etc.) were determined in the laboratory. In vegans' diets, 2-4 g of nori (dried laver), which contained B12, were consumed daily. Not a single case of symptoms due to B12 deficiency was found. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups with respect to any of the examination data, including B12 levels (p < 0.05). Therefore, consumption of nori may keep vegans from suffering B12 deficiency."

    These children's mothers had been vegan for some time, apparently without B12-fortified foods or supplements. If she were using nori and trusted that this would keep the B12 levels of her breast milk healthy, this doesn't support the idea of using nori as a B12 source, since the baby were found to have had low B12 levels. There are conflicting reports about the effect of nori, chlorella and other seaweeds when it come to the actual bioavilability of the B12 in these plants, but it seems to me as if they must have been taking something that contained some kind of B12, since the girl's elder sister were healthy and had good B12 levels. Let's just hope that they didn't try to treat the baby with cough syrup, which can drain the levels of both B12, B9 and other nutrients.
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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Quote rainbow View Post
    I doubt the parents will contest the sentence as they have already been released from prison, with part of the sentence being discounted and the remainder having been served prior to the trial.
    If I (or rather: Google's translate engine) understand this right, they avoid more prison, since they had 3 and half months in prison already. Anyone here who knows French who can check if this is correct?

    Maybe they won't contest the sentence, rainbow, but this could be a very ugly example of discrimination and prejudice in a country which seem to have few vegans and/or lawyers and a judge which may not have much experience with comparing the health risks of a vegan diet with the health risks of a standard diet.

    France has remained the largest EU market for pharmaceutical products, and the French population has one of the highest consumption of pharmaceutical products in the world *, and my feeling is that the nation somehow could suffer from the blind faith in pharmaceuticals that was more common in other countries a few decades ago than it is today. Nobody should risk the child of their health, but not only do most people do that a lot - there are no rules against doing things that have been commonly known for a long time to represent a risk for they children's health. Smoking around newborns is one of many examples of that, feeding children with an antioxidant-deficient diet full of cancer promoting elements are other examples.

    Lots of parents and doctors have misdiagnosed children's health condition without having been criminalized - even if the children have died.

    And there are experts; doctors, literature, major scientific studies out there which disagree with many of the decisions governments and official health authorities make. So - what does a parent do if they meet a more or less random doctor eg. suggesting that someone who doesn't drink should drink meat to get well - if he finds books/literature/ doctors out there who have specialized on their condition and concluded that the worst thing he could do is to drink milk?

    The official views of a government is often based on what most health professionals thought to be true when the literature the current doctors studies were written - but the "Truth" about what's healthy and not is changing every week.

    AFAIK, parents who don't want to give their babies (certain) vaccines need to sign a paper in some countries, stating that if something happens with the child as a result of not having taken the vaccine, the doctor/local health authorities or whatever it's called in English (pardon my English as usual...) don't have any legal responsibility. Maybe such a solution - at least in some cases - would be the least totalitarian way to deal with cases where parents have different views (eg. views that are more updated, or based on newer research) on a certain situation than the current 'official' view represented by their doctor.


    Quote leedsveg View Post
    If they're bringing up children on a 'vegan diet' and they don't know the importance of B12, then maybe they shouldn't be bringing up children?
    I think they should informed about the importance of B12, just like parents who smoke at home or feed their children on coke and burgers should be informed about the importance of the health risks involved with their lifestyle. They should be informed about the importance of B12 by someone who aren't stigmatizing them - someone who is informed about the increasing respect for and professional acknowledgement of living on a vegan diet. As a matter of fact, maybe these parents were waiting too long to contact the hospital again out of a fear from being unfairly treated by someone who don't know how healthy vegans and vegan children (like their other daughter) usually are.

    Despite what you say, you clearly have some opinion about a case that you agree that you 'don't know'!
    I knew a little, lv, and know a little more know. The more I know, discrimination against people who think differently seems to be a major part of this. I also think they would have been treated much better in almost any other country, and seen much more respect if they belonged to the long list of well known vegan athletes/sports people, actors, artists or doctors.

    Quote leedsveg View Post
    No doubt the parents were well intentioned in their actions, but following a 'vegan diet' also needs the application of basic common sense, especially where there is a child in a crisis situation.
    Of course, but that's valid for other parents as well! Like many others, I have a feeling that they would have been treated much better if they would have been raising their kids in sugar water and burgers... and although the risk of having deficiencies which may effect a child's immune system seem to be much more higher among non-vegans, they may not have used autopsy on child dying from pneumonia - and may not even have been tested the girl for deficiencies.

    I also don't know why the parents were put in jail without a sentence, or what they wanted to achieve with that. And I think that the risk that they would have done that with smoking parents feeding their kids with red meat, junk food and sweets - even if these kids' immune system/antioxidant levels most likely were in much less healthy state than in vegan children, is lower.


    *
    And according to this article, which suggests that "Breastfeeding – particularly after two or three months – is regarded in France as something akin to drinking your own urine", France also has the lowest breastfeeding rate in the western world.
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Quote leedsveg View Post
    If they're bringing up children on a 'vegan diet' and they don't know the importance of B12, then maybe they shouldn't be bringing up children?

    Leedsveg
    I can well imagine that a mother may not suspect that her baby could suffer B12 deficiency while she was breastfeeding, because animal milk usually contains B12. As Korn wrote, it's possible the mother herself may have been deficient in B12 and so her milk was too.

    When I was pregnant with my first child, having been vegan for a few years, I practically had to demand a B12 blood test from my doctor, who hadn't realised the importance of this for me as a vegan mother. I did have below-normal levels, so I took 10mcg. a day and in a few weeks, my level was fine. The main reason for introducing other foods at 6 months used to be cited particularly as the need for more iron than breast milk alone can provide for the growing child.

    It is a very sad story. Imprisonment does seem entirely inappropriate.
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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Between 1.6 and 2 million (average: 1.8 mill) children die of pneumonia every year. I've seen two reports about how many of these who are living in the 'developing' countries - 90% and 98%. Average: 94%.

    94% of 1.8 million children is 1,692,000 children dying from pneumonia in the developing world - and 108,000 in the 'rich world'. If we assume that 1% of these are vegans, that's 1080 vegan children dying from pneumonia every year... not talking about developing countries, here, but non-developing countries - like eg. France. This is if the death rate and pneumonia rate for vegan children as as high as it is for non-vegan kids. SInce we haven't heard about these cases, maybe we could assume that vegan children have a higher mortality rate from pneumonia than non-vegan kids?

    I've never heard a story of a vegan child dying from pneumonia, or about vegan parents who have refused to take their baby to hospital followed by the death of the child - not until this case. I assume that most of the 'expected' 1080 cases of vegan children dying of pneumonia and the 106,920 cases of non-vegan children dying of pneumonia in the 'developed' countries are cases where the parents have followed the advice they have received, and taken the suggested tests and taken the recommended treatment.

    Now, pneumonia wasn't a clear diagnosis in this case - it was a 'suspicion' - neither was a possible link between two documented vitamin deficiencies and the outcome of the situation.

    If the B12 deficiency rate is as low in the whole world the Tuft University study from USA suggests, there are more than 600 million B12 deficient people in the world, of which most will get or already have children. There are many B12 deficient woman who are breastfeeding, and most of them (99%) aren't vegans. If there's a link between B12 deficiency and either getting pneumonia or being incapable of handling it, we must assume that more than the 'standard' 9% B12 deficiency rate is valid for people who die from pneumonia.

    So... more than 9% of the 106,920 cases of non-vegans who die from pneumonia have B12 deficient mothers, but lets say it's only 9%. That's almost 10,000 cases, every year, of children of non-vegan parents who die from pneumonia, and whose mothers - and therefore breast milk - is deficient in B12. Yes: 10,000 children dies every year from B12 deficient mothers, from pneumonia, but most likely - they followed the instructions they got, simply because most people do that.

    Some questions:

    1) Since there are so many cases of B12 deficient babies of non-vegan mothers who 'follow the instructions' - but still see their children die from pneumonia - how can the French court make this into something they know is caused by the vegan diet (if that's what they did)?

    2) If they just assume that this has to do with the mother's vegan diet, isn't referring to a vegan diet a typical example of stigmatization and discrimination?

    2) How do they know if the baby would have survived if it had been followed the doctors instructions, since there are more than 100,000 cases every year in the industrialized world where children die from pneumonia, but practically no published reports that parents don't follow instructions from the doctors?

    4) If they only assume - and don't know - that the low levels of two nutrients had to do with this - how can they give them a sentence based in 'food deprivation' - if that's what they did?

    5) What's the reason this couple is prosecuted, while the estimated 10,000 cases of other non-vegan mothers who have children dying from pneumonia - which also "could be" related with these mothers' B12 deficiencies most likely never will get a jail sentence?

    According to WHO, home treatment for children with severe pneumonia just as effective as hospital. This article is from 2008, when the French parents case started, and not from on old book.

    Proper home treatment needs a proper diagnosis. Or does it? Some parents are concerned about the methods used in hospitals... X-rays, blood tests etc. From what I can see, and only if either the psychological or physical consequences of taking X-ray/blood tests was the concern of the parents, one option could have been to take a standard pneumonia treatment even if they weren't sure that it would be needed. That would be antibiotics - which, in 40% of the cases wouldn't have an effect (if the pneumonia was viral, and not bacterial).

    So the core of all this could be the increasing skepticism against using antibiotics. I'll google natural antibiotics pneumonia later and see of there's any reason to assume that alternative methods which are proven to work as well as the more standard treatments (but without the side effects) are available for pneumonia. It could actually be that this tragic story could have been avoided if the French government (very unlikely, it seems) would have invested money and expertise on finding better ways to deal with pneumonia than traditional antibiotics. As a matter of fact, I think it's a shame that they don't try even if they would fail. There are many, generally agreed-upon reasons to try to find alternatives to the standard antibiotics.
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    .

  34. #34
    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Here are some of the disturbing, unpleasant truths about non-vegan pregnancy and parenting....

    Diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure in the mother are know to increase the stillbirth risk. Since mothers consuming animal products are more likely to have diabetes, high blood pressure and become obese, their choice to add animal products to their diet will increase the stillbirth risk. Smoking also increases the stillbirth risk.
    Independent studies over a long period show that more than 20 of the most common cancer types are associated with intake of animal products. This suggests that feeding a child on an animal based diet will increase the likelihood of getting cancer, doesn't it? There are thousands of cases of childhood cancer every year.

    From http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/120-1254/2533/
    In 1998, the US Government introduced mandatory fortification of all cereal grain products with 140 mcg of folic acid per 100 g of flour. In addition, they also recommended periconceptual supplementation with 400 mcg folic acid for all women except those with a history of a prior affected pregnancy (where the recommended supplementation was still 4000 mcg).
    After these initiatives, median folate levels in non-pregnant women of reproductive age more than doubled,10 and the US reported a drop of 30% in cases of neural tube defects.14
    http://www.chg.duke.edu/diseases/ntd.html
    Neural tube defects (NTDs) are one of the most common birth defects, occurring in approximately one in 1,000 live births in the United States.
    [...]
    Researchers have found that 50-70% of NTDs can be prevented when women supplement their diet with folic acid, a water-soluble B vitamin.
    According to http://www.americanpregnancy.org/main/statistics.html, there are 6 million pregnancies every year throughout the United States, and 4,058,000 live births. If 0.1% (1 in 1000 livebirths) are born with NTD, that's circa 4000 babies born with a neural tube defect. And since researchers have found that 50-70% of these could have been prevented by adding folic acid to their mothers' diet, that's around 2400 babies born with with NTD, every year in USA alone: These babies wouldn't have born with NTD if the mother would have had sufficient levels of folic acid/folate from their diet.

    It's important to have sufficient levels of both B12 and folate before one knows that one is pregnant, because by the time a mother knows that she is pregnant, the effect of nutrient deficiencies that may cause NTDs has already found place. Many countries are already having mandatory folic acid supplementation of food, and this new report supports "the recent official recommendation to the Chief Medical Officer for mandatory fortification of food with folic acid in the UK."

    The widespread folate deficiency among people on standard diets has been described as a health hazard, and as something which causes a worldwide 'birth defect epidemics'.

    This, this and this report suggest that both B12 and folic acid supplementation is needed.

    In terms of NTD risk, vegans need to be concerned about having enough B12, because although this report from 2010 concludes that "It seems that vitamin B12 deficiency does not play a causative role in the development of foetal NTD", the common knowledge so far is that B12 plays an important, NTD preventing role.

    I hope all potential vegan parents who read this already know that just like non-vegans need to pay extra attention to their B9 levels - particularly before pregnancy, vegans need to pay special attention to B12, particularly before pregnancy.

    If folic acid supplementation reduces the amount of cases of babies born with a neural tube defect, thousands of the babies that have been with NTDS would have been without NTDs if the mothers had a better diet. So - will a folate deficient breastfeeding mother giving her baby either folate deficient solid food or folate deficient breast milk risk being charged for neglect or food/folate deprivation?

    This list of the best (circa 50) folate sources mention only plant sources. One can get folate from liver (and eggs) as well, but the the reason folic acid fortification of food has become mandatory is that when looking at what people on a standard diet actually do eat, lack of B9 still causes thousands of cases of NTDs in their babies. (Heart disease is also a know risk). One reason for a list long list without eggs/liver is probably that the liver is only a small part of the body of a cow or a chicken. There's probably not enough liver our there to feed the meat eating population with the folate they need.

    Wikipedia has a long list of other risks involved in having too low folate levels.


    Even if the mandatory folic acid supplements have reduced that neural tube defect ratio, it is being discussed that getting B9 (folic acid/folate) from supplements instead of food actually could increase some health risks (for some people). If this is correct, the best way to reduce neural tube defects from B9 deficiency is to decrease the intake if animal products and increase the intake of plant based, folate rich food.

    Something else: Farmers have used antibiotics for decades even in healthy animals to promote faster growth and prevent (!) and treat disease. There's an ongoing discussion about wether this may represent a health problem for humans needing antibiotics to treat diseases caused by bacteria. I don't know enough about this, but this article from the Danish government suggests that....
    "if we eat meat with bacteria which are resistant against antibiotics, the resistant bacteria can be transferred to humans, which can cause problems when treating infections".
    They also write eg. that "MRSA is resistant against important antibiotics and may therefore cause serious disease and in worst case death in humans".
    [...]
    "In summary, our study suggests that the current levels of resistance to penicillin and cephalosporin do not appear to increase mortality in patients with pneumococcal pneumonia. High-dose intravenous penicillin may be effective for infections in which the MIC of penicillin is up to 2 mg per milliliter, and ceftriaxone or cefotaxime may be effective when the MIC of penicillin is higher. [/quote]However, the emergence of high levels of resistance to cephalosporin is an alarming problem.

    I'm sure there are others who disagree with these sources about the antibiotics resistance topic, but until anything is proven, it's reasonable to say that there's a risk involved. And the recent French case is a lot about increased risks, since there seems to be little proof of anything (that eg. that vit. A or B12 status played an important role).

    If bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a real problem, or will become one, treating diseases which need an antibiotics cure wouldn't have much effect - representing another risk involved in eating animal products, and in terms of treating pneumonia, avoiding animal products with antibiotics would be a considered a good thing (as long as the child got the nutrients it needed).


    Pneumonia Bacterium Becoming More Resistant to Antibiotics:
    The first antibiotic-resistant infection by S. pneumoniae in the United States was reported in 1974. S. pneumoniae antibiotic-resistant infections occurred at low levels in the 1980s. It wasn't until the early 1990s that resistance became widespread. This is a real concern. S. pneumoniae is the most common cause of pneumonia in older adults and leads to death in 20% of the cases of pneumonia even when appropriate antibiotics are used.

    This article from 2005 discusses the problem of increasing antibiotic resistance in cases of Streptococcus pneumoniae, a major cause of pneumonia - and seem to conclude that vaccination is the best solution, and that the use of vaccines have helped the antibiotic resistance problem.

    Kenneth Todar, PhD, writes on textbookofbacteriology.net (a few weeks ago) that "An alarming increase in resistance of bacteria that cause community acquired infections has also been documented, especially in the staphylococci and pneumococci (Streptococcus pneumoniae), which are prevalent causes of disease and mortality. In a recent study, 25% of bacterial pneumonia cases were shown to be resistant to penicillin, and an additional 25% of cases were resistant to more than one antibiotic." Also: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) "in healthcare settings commonly causes serious and potentially life threatening infections, such as bloodstream infections, surgical site infections or pneumonia."

    MRSA are often sub-categorized as Hospital-Associated MRSA (HA-MRSA) or Community-Associated MRSA (CA-MRSA), depending upon the circumstances of acquiring disease. Read more about hospital-acquired pneumonia ("HAP") and other infections on Wikipedia: "The CDC estimates 2 million people in the United States are infected annually by hospital-acquired infections, resulting in 20,000 deaths.[2] The most common nosocomial infections ( = "infections that are a result of treatment in a hospital or a healthcare service unit") are of the urinary tract, surgical site and various pneumonias.[3]" "Many types are difficult to attack with antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance is spreading to Gram-negative bacteria that can infect people outside the hospital.[1]"

    According to DIAGNOSING, TREATING AND PREVENTING HOSPITAL ACQUIRED PNEUMONIA, those "Gram-negative" causes - which actually can spread pneumonia outside the institution - are the most frequent causes of hospital-acquired pneumonia.

    This means that one both may get pneumonia/other diseases from contact with a health care institutions (partially due to the antibiotic resistance of Gram-negative bacteria) - and that people who are infected by antibiotics-resistant bacteria may not be helped by the help they may offer outside these institutions: antibiotics. And I'm not saying that people shouldn't go to hospitals - I'm suggesting that the decision these parents made may not be as uneducated as it may seem like at first.

    Other than that, the reason I bring up stillbirth risks, child cancer, neural tube defects due to folate deficiency, diabetes, obesity, smoking, high blood pressure and more is that it's not common to put people in prison or give them a sentence for having done something which may contribute to severe health risk or even death by cancer or pneumonia.

    If it's correct that more than 1000 vegan children and 100,000 non-vegan children die from pneumonia every year, and if only one couple have been accused for doing something criminal in such a context, there's a reason that all the others haven't been charged for anything. That reason is probably the same as the reason why parents losing their children to cancer aren't charged for having the diet they had, and the same reason that mothers who have had a folate deficiency and get a child with a neural tube defect aren't charged for 'neglect' or 'folate deprivation': the acknowledge that doctors and parents sometimes misjudge a situation.

    For a change, I agree with what seems to be the majority here: Most parents, including B12 deficient parents, who lose a child to pneumonia, cancer or get children with severe birth defects aren't considered criminals - even if they could have done things that prevented the outcome of the situation. The same goes for doctors who have misdiagnosed a patient's condition - even if the doctors have made decisions that have or may have caused a fatal outcome.
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    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Quote leedsveg View Post
    Your comments contain a lot of supposition because you simply don't know a lot of the facts in this case. (Neither do I, which is why I've spent only a little time posting about it.)
    Again, I think a lot of valid comments can be made about cases like this (including this case) like this - even if we don't know all the details... as long as we don't claim that we don't know the details. I think it's wrong to witness something which seems like an very ugly case of discrimination without adding something which may help non-vegan visitors to understand why many vegans think these people have been treated in an unfair way.

    If the rest of the world sometimes seems to be against we vegans, or simply doesn't understand us...
    This is different from what we have witnessed here. AFAIK, this is the first time in history someone has been put in jail for a situation like this. The press comments may also have caused a lot of misconceptions about veganism; some journalist read one article superficially, assume that on cannot get vit. A without meat/milk, and creates a story more or less about 'vegans killing their kids'. And even if they later learn that the in court, there was made an effort not to criticize lining on a vegan diet as such, but that it was a case of neglect, those who read some ugly header about vegan food and a baby who died from pneumonia may not get all that other info. They may not know that hundreds of thousands of non-vegan children have died from pneumonia either, even if the parents probably followed all their doctors instructions.


    And if we hold that view for ourselves, perhaps we also hold it for our children who we are bringing up as vegans?
    Suppositions....

    "if we hold that view"... We don't. "Perhaps we also hold it for our children..." We don't.

    I have never seen anyone suggest that they would do anything that would put the risk of their children in danger for AR reasons - not one single time. I haven't seen anyone claim that they set their own health up against helping animals either. Just spreading the idea that (certain) vegans may consider risking their children's health, or that "we" hold such views, IS, in my opinion, spreading misconceptions about veganism.

    If you know of anyone who has presented a view that they'll risk their kids health for animal causes, let me know. I'm 99.9999% that you haven't, but if we have such a member, s/he will soon become an ex-member.

    In the omni world, personal health and children's health are seen as paramount
    I haven't seen anything - ever - which suggest that vegans aren't as concerned about their children's heals as vegans are. Seeing what many omnis feed their kids with, how they give them pills for almost anything, the high level of junk food they feed their kids with, all this sugar and artificial sweeteners - the health risks they impose on their kids eating habits (increased cancer/heart disease etc risk), smoking at home with kids around, I'm afraid "paramount" is the last word that comes to my mind.


    I can understand why omnis have a suspicion that these are only a secondary consideration for vegans.
    IF someone assume that vegans are less concerned about their kids health than non-vegans, they must have come across some extremely atypical vegan. Misconceptions about vegan health is based on not enough knowledge about nutrition and plant based food - unfortunately with a portion of ignorance added. There are vegans who may be ignorant as well, but my general feeling after many years as a vegan and after having run this site for some years is that vegans are more concerned about their (and their kids') health than the average person is - by far.
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    leedsveg
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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Quote leedsveg View Post
    By "we" I don't mean you or I Korn. I mean two, three, or more people on the Forum who have expressed that view, for instance, in a poll such as:

    "Please list all of the reasons why you are a vegan"
    If someone claims that they are vegans firstly for the animals and then for their health, this doesn't mean that they are less interested in or capable of taking care of their health.

    On the contrary - if someone acknowledge that the wellbeing of other living beings are important to them, they'd probably be more concerned about their children's health than someone who isn't bothered by others' suffering.

    If "2-3 or more" people on a forum with 9000+ members have said that they would have been vegans even if it wasn't healthy, this has to be seen in a larger context. Those who have seen the "Please list all of the reasons why you are a vegan" thread have also seen all these posts from people who initially started to eat vegan for health reasons (plus the posts from those who discovered improved health as a side effect of eating vegan).

    "For all I know, it may be a fairly common vegan view." If it would have been a fairly common view, we would have seen it in more than a few vegans here as well. But a "secondary consideration for vegans" is about why people initially decide to go vegan, it isn't about how they deal with their own health after they have become vegans. And these people haven't claimed that living on a vegan diet is less healthy than living on a standard diet; they just emphasized how important the animal aspect of their decision were. If these members' children would become sick, do you think they would ignore their kids' health problems because they went vegan since they cared for animals? I can't see this being a conflict at all.

    Why would a meat eater assume that someone who demonstrates compassion for other living beings could have a tendency to watch their children become ill without trying to do their best?

    It seems that the French couple were brought to trial mainly because their baby died combined with their assumption that the baby would be better off with a home treatment without antibiotics. This was at a stage were bronchitis - and not pneumonia - appeared to be the most clear diagnosis. And probably due to lack of knowledge about vegan nutrition, someone (in the legal system or in press, or both) added "vegan" to the problem and to the headers in the press. But if the lack of two nutrients really was a part of this (which I haven't seen any proof of) one doesn't treat pneumonia with cheese, meat or eggs.

    Ill kids (and parents) often eat little, so one solution to increase nutrient levels in a baby would be to dissolve supplements in their baby bottles, or add supplements to the mother's diet, if the baby is being exclusively breastfed. But since viral pneumonia can't be treated with antibiotics, and bacterial antibiotics resistance seem to be a relevant topic in pneumonia cases, and since home treatment is quite common for bronchitis and pneumonia, we don't know the outcome of the situation would have been if the parents would have taken the baby to the hospital.

    There's a lot of "may have caused" etc. in the articles I've seen; "may" as in "maybe". And maybe eg. vitamin A had to do with it, but one usually doesn't put people in jail for "maybes". Since most parents have nutrient deficiencies, we should assume that their children have the same deficiencies as well, because they eat the same food. I noticed that in one of the articles written after the trial, it was mentioned that (after experts in court had protested that their diet was the cause of the baby's death) that the prosector was careful not to criticize the couple's diet. But the headings about "vegan parents" live their own life on internet now.

    There's an new story out now, about a (non-vegan) mother going to court for having not given her child the suggested cancer medicine. Her son diet from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. From to an article called "Diet Linked to Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma":
    "What we found is if a person has a higher intake of animal protein, they will have a higher risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma," Zheng tells Web. "And people who have a higher intake of saturated fat have an increased risk. On the other hand, if you have higher-than-average intake of dietary fiber -- particularly if you frequently eat vegetables and fruits with a high fiber content -- you have a reduced risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
    The findings appear in the March 1 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology."
    Also:
    His study showed that people who ate more of certain foods tended to have a lower risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Those foods include:

    Tomatoes
    Broccoli
    Squash
    Cauliflower
    Onions
    Mixed lettuce salad
    Leeks
    Apples
    Pears
    Citrus fruits
    This mother hasn't been charged for too low level of healthy plant foods in the family's diet. They may not even have discussed it. But even if it seems that this new cancer case has more to do "food deprivation" than the French case we discuss in this thread, the mother's diet isn't even mentioned.

    ---

    Do you disagree that the French case looks like a case of discrimination against people who 'think different'?

    My ex-ex-mother-in law died from a cancer type known to be associated with a high intake of meat, and high B12 levels. My mother died from a brain stroke - which according to the hospital doctor may have happened as a result of the medicine she had been given. There was no apology given in any of these cases about not having given the proper warnings against the diet/medicine in question, and nobody has been sued for having given improper advice.

    I'm sure the French government is wise enough not to have any official warnings about living on a plant based diet, and even more so now when experts' viewpoints about vegan food has gotten some exposure. And I haven't seen anyone write that the health personnel told these parents - when the baby first got ill - that the mother should start eating animal products to improve the breast milk, that there was any serious risk involved in not adding solid food to the baby's diet, or that B12/vit A. was an issue.

    Unless vegan children, percent-wise, die from pneumonia more often than non-vegan children, veganism has such has nothing to so with this. It has been mentioned that the ill baby lost weight, but doctors know that losing weight is quite common for ill children and adults. But of course there's a very good chance that the doctors/parents should have done certain things differently.

    A lot of this seems to be about being wise after-the-fact. By saying maybe it's not surprising that omnivores think vegans ignore their kids' health because a handful of vegans have claimed that they went vegan for the animals, and that health was a secondary choice both confuses the discussion and ignores the fact that most (almost no) vegans don't seem to think that any of this means that we are less concerned about our kids' health. And even some vegans would ignore their own health (which there is no reason to do), they wouldn't have any right to ignore their kids' health.

    Do you really have a feeling, lv, that omnivorous parents are more concerned about their children's health than vegan parents? Can't you see that focusing on statements from "2-3 or more" vegans instead of including all those who eat vegan for health reasons/discover health benefits of eating vegan easily can distort it all?
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Quote Korn View Post
    Do you really have a feeling, lv, that omnivorous parents are more concerned about their children's health than vegan parents? Can't you see that focusing on statements from "2-3 or more" vegans instead of including all those who eat vegan for health reasons/discover health benefits of eating vegan easily can distort it all?
    I did not see LV saying that.

    Also, I did not see him saying that omnivores value their own health more than vegans.

    If they would, they'd go vegan and/or stop eating junk food, as there are very few people who do not know that it is healthy to 'eat your veggies' etc. instead of going to McDonalds. Do they care? Not really. McDonalds restaurants tend to be pretty crowded as far as I can recollect.

    What I have seen on this and other forums is that when people get confronted with the usual dumbass 'yes, but do you get enough protein' 'do you get your vitamin' etc., they reply (and I have used that reply myself on occasions) 'Well, I am not doing it for my own health, but for the animals health' which seems to be a fitting remark to a stupid question. But does the person really think that? Would they really willingly jeopardize their health for the animals sake? Most likely not. But, we know that getting enough protein and B12 is nowhere near as grave a problem as omnivores might think.

    Still, in the public perception, omnivores might think that vegans (who are extremists) would value the animals welfare (that omnis do not value very much) more than their own welfare (I mean, they are not even eating them, although they taste REALLYYY good. How weird).

    So I can see where LV is coming from, that in the uninformed view that omnis tend to have about vegans, such impressions might also form a part of it.

    Best regards,
    Andy

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Hi,

    based on what lv has written here and in a PM, I think he is misinterpretation the situation. His claim that in the omni world, personal health and children's health are seen as paramount combined with some other writings of his have a taste of judgmentalism against 'different thinkers'. Since I know that it's quite common in many countries to have a low level of good, public info about veg*n diets, and little if any education about it when doctors and dietitians are trained, I think it's quite clear that some of the blame here can be cast on "the authorities", and I could have said this even before this case came up. Lv disagrees, and so be it - I'm only commenting hid viewpoints.

    But of course we should try to understand why certain journalists and other omnis think like they do. Since most of us have been omnivores, it shouldn't be that hard, really. Bringing 'food deprivation' into this topic certainly gives the idea that living on a vegan diet as such is part of the problem here. Lack of knowledge among on important nutritional issues, on a government level, is also an essential part of this. And like it or not, when lv writes "And if we hold that view for ourselves, perhaps we also hold it for our children who we are bringing up as vegans?", and not "If they assume that we..." etc, he could easily be contributing to the idea that vegans don't see their own or their kids' health as as 'paramount' as omnis do.

    The parents weren't acquitted by court. Even if they may not need to go back to jail (do they?), they got a five-year sentence for causing baby's death. According to the press, part of this had to do with the mothers "dietary imbalance". The court also partly withdrew the couple's authority over their other, elder daughter - even if she apparently had no nutrient deficiencies. "Decisions relating to her schooling and health have been entrusted to social services", according to this site.

    Maybe the parents were more overly protective than ignorant. Most people (I've seen a few meat eaters as well, who agree in this) seems to agree that the death of the baby wasn't caused by the parents diet. But I've still seen people (including some vegans) who call these parents "idiots", that they "shouldn't be allowed to have babies" etc. I think we all would be better off by trying to understand the parents and compare the similar situations from omnivorous families than joining some hate-campaign against someone who lost their child (luckily not seen on our forum). The press seems to assume that they know that the baby would have survived pneumonia if the parents would have listened to the doctors... and maybe they would, there's just too many "maybes" in here - and as vegans I think we should try to respect and understand other minorities (people who trust alternative medicine) instead of treating them the way a few people treat vegans; with a combination of negativity and ignorance.

    We all know now that things should have been done differently - eg. the baby should have been checked for a B12 absorption problem (which doesn't seem to have found place). And there should be performed some serious research ion the likelihood that low levels of these two nutrients would have anything to do with this.

    Maybe some vegans are bashing these parents on internet just to show non-vegan readers that what they did isn't a common thing to do for vegans? I don't know.

    What I have seen on this and other forums is that when people get confronted with the usual dumbass 'yes, but do you get enough protein' 'do you get your vitamin' etc., they reply (and I have used that reply myself on occasions) 'Well, I am not doing it for my own health, but for the animals health' which seems to be a fitting remark to a stupid question.
    I'm afraid I have to disagree here. I think it's a not really good answer to a question relevant for people who have been brought up by schools/parents etc telling them that they need meat and milk. Such an answer can easily confirm the misconception that by avoiding animal products, the risk that people will get health problems will increase compared with if they'd live on the same diet most people do.

    If I would have been a lawyer with enough money and time, I'd seriously consider a trial against the French government after having seen what I've seen the last week.
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    I'm afraid I have to disagree here. I think it's a not really good answer to a question relevant for people who have been brought up by schools/parents etc telling them that they need meat and milk. Such an answer can easily confirm the misconception that by avoiding animal products, the risk that people will get health problems will increase compared with if they'd live on the same diet most people do.
    Hello Korn,

    yes, when I was following the thread (and writing my last post) this had already occurred to me.

    So we're not only 'not allowed to eat meat and drink milk', we also have to refrain from cynical remarks, because we have to prove to omnis that we are better than they are. Not fair.

    Best regards,
    Andy

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    Thanks, lv, for the last post (which you now have removed). It helped me understand what you actually mean. And regarding what I wrote about your writings - that comment was related to this topic.

    But - please don't remove all your posts from a thread. Much of what is written exist because of things from your posts. If you have written confusing things which have been quoted, and you at some later point clarify what you actually mean - but later remove that clarification message - the quotes still remain. This both gives a false impression of your viewpoints, and results in a thread which makes less sense.
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

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    Default Re: French parents not following doctor's advice face trial after baby dies

    LV,

    NOW you make me curious. Great suspense tactics.

    Best regards,
    Andy

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