By Bradley J. Fikes
The animal rights group PETA has a well-earned reputation for extremism carried to such an extreme it’s farcical. PETA recently chided President Obama for killing a pesky fly. According to PETA, Obama should have caught the fly in a humane trap and released it outdoors.
With such deranged views, PETA has a hard time getting taken seriously. So PETA zealots have created front groups that advance its agenda, while proclaiming other motives. One of these front groups, The Cancer Project, recently pulled a classic PETA-style publicity stunt, filing a lawsuit in New Jersey asking for a cancer warning label to be put on hot dogs.
Encouragingly, some journalists are skeptical of The Cancer Project’s claim to be purely concerned with human health. A Los Angeles Times story described it as a “vegan advocacy group.” The article even noted that the project is run by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, itself created by PETA members.
However, the Associated Press inaccurately called The Cancer Project as “an offshoot of a pro-vegetarian organization“. The perfunctory article didn’t even name the organization. Readers weren’t told it was a PETA front group.
Vegan and vegetarian are not the same. Vegetarians don’t eat meat, but will eat other animal products, such as cheese. Vegans won’t eat anything from an animal. For some vegans, it’s a health choice. But for those such as PETA, it’s part of their animal rights agenda.
The medical consensus is that some animal food is desirable for human health. Meat, milk and cheese are more concentrated in nutrients than plants. PETA and its front groups will never admit that. That’s how you can tell a legitimate medical organization from an animal rights front: the latter are more concerned with animal lives than human health. Not all vegans are animal rights fantatics like PETA, but all animal rights fanatics are vegans.
In failing to distinguish between vegan and vegetarian, the Associated Press did a disservice to its readers. Apparently, its executive drones like Tom Curley and Dean Singleton are more concerned with fanciful initiatives to “protect” its stories from being copied and used without permission than with making its stories accurate and worthwhile in the first place.
A 2004 New York Times article by columnist Joe Sharkey pointed out the ties between PETA and its front groups:
Dr. Neal Barnard is a nonpracticing psychiatrist who is the president and founder of the physicians’ committee. He said he was an adjunct clinical researcher on diabetes at George Washington University. Dr. Barnard is also the president of a group called the Foundation for the Support of Animal Protection, which, he says, “provides financial services for PETA and can provide services for other charities, too.” The foundation lists itself as also doing business under another name, the PETA Foundation.
Barnard has had a good deal of success pushing PETA’s agenda while posing as just a doctor concerned about human health. He writes articles and books on health, including a book on reversing diabetes, that all just happen to find that adopting a vegan diet is the answer. Some of the advice may be valid. But as an advocate of a fanatical animal rights movement, Barnard can only be trusted to advance that agenda.
It’s only good reporting to point out the deception behind his and PETA’s campaign. Kudos to the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Shame on the Associated Press.
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As with all I write here, this is my opinion, not necessarily that of my employer, the North County Times.
I talked to some of the Physicians Committee folks at a medical meeting a couple of years ago. I started asking questions and they quickly ran out of answers. They are pretty superficial. If they are going to spend the money for booths at a medical convention (a couple thousand bucks), they should get some people who can talk to science oriented people. That’s who you will find at those conventions. All in all, a pretty weak effort but lots of noise.
Bradley, since this post, I’m starting to get spammed by comments from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. They must have internet bots that scann for such words.
I’m sure the bots are at least as intelligent as the PCRM.