THE WIDE WORLD OF VEGAN BLOGS

So I was checking back through the Vegan Porn archives for something, and came upon a post that referenced this blog: www.vegblog.org Cool! And I'm reading along in that one and it leads me to another, veganfreaks.org! Which is also cool! And which links to other blogs and/or sites I haven't even gotten to yet! So that's what this Internet thing is all about, eh?

I've read enough of these ones to know I want them in my sidebar and have added them there. But the biggest surprise of the day is when I go back to read some more of Vegblog.org and - what's this? Neal Barnard is wailing away on electric guitar in a band? How did I miss this? Why didn't Neal ever mention this to me when I talked to him? I feel like I've just woken up from some kind of daze - I guess it's more accurately called "not paying enough attention." Anyway, check out all these other sites if you haven't already! (And if you have... why didn't you tell me??? )

ARE YOU A MAN OR A MOUSE?

That seems to be the question that would face cowboy scientists who want to create a mouse with a human brain. Just go read Vegan Porn's take on the whole unbelievable concept. They've nailed it, and I have little than I can add other than my spiffy headline above.

IT'S OFFICIAL: MAD COW FEED BAN NOT BEING ENFORCED

"The Government Accountability Office, the investigative wing of Congress, said that while the FDA has made improvements in its management of the feed ban, 'various program weaknesses continue to undermine the nation's firewall against BSE,'" says this AP story. Well, that's one way to put it, GAO, "undermine the firewall." But see, a "firewall" is an all-or-nothing thing. If just a little teensy bit of fire can get past a firewall and start a fire on the other side, it ain't a firewall anymore, is it?

Other findings: The FDA has "no uniform approach to identify the feed manufacturers and shippers that are subject to the feed ban but have not been inspected;" 20 percent of the 14,800 firms inspected since 1997 have not been re-inspected in five years or more; the FDA's feed-ban inspection guidance "does not include instructions to routinely sample cattle feed to test for potentially banned material;" and the FDA has no "consistent standards for cleaning machinery and transport vehicles that handle both prohibited and allowed feed materials." But other than that, firewall all the way.

HUNTING GETTING MORE UNPOPULAR

Here's a story from last week that doesn't actually seem to have any news in it - if I'm reading right, the latest figures are from 2001, a decline that's already been covered - but this was all over the wires, and if it helps get the message across to people that bloodsport is not a legitimate use of 21st-century leisure time, then I'll happily point to it.

BIRD FLU PANDEMIC MARCHES CLOSER

OK, now is it time to start paying attention to this? "It's a scenario that the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health experts have been expecting and fearing, a mutated version of the bird flu virus that can spread from human to human. The WHO says clusters of H5N1 bird flu cases among people in Vietnam may be a signal that the virus has mutated into a version that can be spread by humans."

KILLER CATS

Sure, it was funny when Monty Python did it, but not in real life.

Well, OK, it's kind of funny in real life too. In this case, unlike with the puppies, the guy wasn't trying to shoot the animal, but it's all too apparent that the animals are now looking out for each other and fighting back on a worldwide level. Besides, the man was cooking at the time, and I'll lay you ten-to-one odds that it wasn't tofu he was fryin' up. Maybe that pushed the cat over the edge, and likewise the cat did to the gun?

MAD COW MAKES VEGANISM A PRIORITY

I recall explaining to someone back when the beef-in-McDonalds-fries thing broke in 2001 that Mad Cow was going to change the way people looked at product ingredients, and people were going to become more like vegans, checking for the absence of bad stuff. It's not only true for food but cosmetics and the like, and now one company is trumpeting its development of a meat-free drug base: "Oxoid has launched a new meat-free culture medium to serve what it says is a growing demand by pharmaceutical companies for non-animal-derived materials for use in pharmaceutical production. Companies making drugs have been trying to reduce the use of animal products in the production environment because of the risk that these materials may carry the agents that cause transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), such as mad cow disease and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob diseases (vCJD) in humans."

MILK'S 'STRONG BONES' BROKEN

Check this out, man! The Washington Times says: "Milk and dairy products do not promote healthy bones in kids and young adults, a Washington-based research group found after analyzing 58 studies." It continues with an explanation of the "calcium paradox:" "Though Americans are some of the world's highest consumers of dairy products, U.S. rates of osteoporosis and bone fracture also are among the world's highest." This is noteworthy because the research was released by PCRM, and has made a nice-sized splash in the national media, with multiple write-ups occupying the "Health" box of Google News for over 24 hours. Plus, although many of the treatments "balanced" PCRM's peer-reviewed research (it appears in the reputable journal Pediatrics) with dissent from such unbiased parties as the National Dairy Councill and Rick Berman's Conspicuous Consumption Foundation, one that reported it straight up, no chaser was... yes, the Washington Times. What a world.

Also, thanks to a CCF-rebutting press release from PCRM I learned that the oft-cited "censure" of the group from the AMA is not only wrongly reported, but has been recanted by the AMA itself, essentially averring that new scientific evidence has proven its old position wrong and PCRM right. Read it.

CONNECTICUT CONSIDERS CIRCUS ELEPHANT BAN

Note that the main argument is human safety rather than the cruelty inherent in forcing elephants to travel town-to-town and do silly tricks. But whatever the motivation, a ban is a ban. "The legislation before lawmakers, proposed by state Reps. Steven Fontana, D-North Haven, and Diana Urban, R-North Stonington, would prohibit the use of elephants in traveling shows, theatrical exhibitions and circuses that come to the state. A similar bill has been proposed in Massachusetts."

SIX WEEKS TO HEALTH

A new study says that "basic changes in diet and exercise can lead to a dramatic drop in a person's risk for chronic illnesses like diabetes, cancer and heart disease in as little as six weeks." Appearing in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, the study "also explains that participants experienced significant reductions in body fat, cholesterol levels and blood pressure as they adopted a diet emphasizing unrefined 'food-as-grown' -- like grains, legumes and fresh fruits and vegetables -- and implemented a 30-minute-a-day cardiovascular exercise program." Really. Food as grown, eh? Guess that rules out meat for all but the hardiest steak tartare fans.

MAD COW FRIDAY

A roundup of all those ornery Mad-Cow-related stories currently galumphing across the prairie:

U.S. Senate Votes to Block Canada Cattle Imports
The U.S. Senate voted to overturn a Bush administration plan on Thursday to allow imports of Canadian cattle, the second defeat in two days for the administration's efforts to normalize beef trade roiled by mad cow disease in North America.

Does your state have Mad Cow? You may never know.
Lawmakers across the country are working on ways to keep livestock disease investigations secret until absolutely necessary. Proposals already have passed in Idaho and Wyoming, while lawmakers in Colorado, Maryland and Utah are considering bills this spring.

Welsh school deaths linked to mad cow
Meat contaminated with mad cow disease has been linked to the deaths of three Welsh students who died in the late 1980s.

Morocco Says CJD Death Not Linked to Mad Cow
"He died of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which first appeared in 1922, which has nothing to do with the new variant of CJD that affects humans when they eat meat tainted with BSE," Health Minister Mohamed Cheikh Biadillah told Reuters. Well, it has many things to do with vCJD, actually, and more to the point, it's now been proven that vCJD can look exactly like sporadic. So is this a definitive "no"? Dunno.

And BSE may have entered baby food in 70s
Scientists are to test a hypothesis that young people who have died from the human form of BSE were infected by contaminated baby foods as far back as 1970. Gee, wonder what Lindsay Allen would have to say about that?

COURT: FARM RULES FAILING TO PROTECT WATER

Even if you don't give a rat's posterior about animal or meat issues, you may want to pay attention to this if you are someone who drinks water: "A federal appeals court on Monday agreed with environmentalists that new federal clean-water rules were not protecting the nation's waters from the manure pollution of large farms. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said it agreed with environmentalists who claimed in lawsuits that the rules failed to provide meaningful review of plans developed by the farms to limit the pollution." The article goes on to quote Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who as president of the Waterkeeper Alliance says "these regulations were the product of a conspiracy between a lawless industry and compliant public officials in cahoots to steal the public trust."

DON'T TELL GEORGE EISMAN...

...but it looks like there is something bananas are good for after all. Here's a BBC story on a new alternative to practicing surgery on animals - practicing it on fruit!

"In medicine, letting teenagers loose on operating theatres and surgical equipment sounds dangerous. But a hospital consultant believes it is worth the risk and invites sixth formers to find out at first hand what it is like to work in the health industry. The closest they get to surgery is stitching up a banana or dissecting an orange - but they get a real insight into life in a busy hospital."
(VIA VEGAN PORN)

GOT ACNE?

If so, milk is a likely culprit - especially that skim milk that's soooooo very healthful, dontchaknow - according to a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. "Women who reported drinking more than three servings of any type of milk each day were 22 percent more likely to report having had severe acne than those who drank only one or fewer servings daily. Women who drank two or more daily servings of skim milk were 44 percent more likely to report having had severe acne. The abstract of the article notes that "Previous studies suggest possible associations between Western diet and acne" and concludes: "We found a positive association with acne for intake of total milk and skim milk. We hypothesize that the association with milk may be because of the presence of hormones and bioactive molecules in milk."

GOOD FOR THE GOOSE

"Another Pittsburgh restaurant [dunno what the previous one was in Pittsburgh] has decided to stop selling foie gras after more than a month of weekly protests by an animal rights group. Every week, usually on Friday, about a half-dozen people from Voices for Animals would picket outside Le Pommier for about 45 minutes, said Jeremy Carlisle, part-owner of the French bistro on the South Side." Again, the role of the protesters in affecting the decision must be played down if not discounted entirely. "'It did play a slight factor in our decision,' Carlisle said. But he added that the restaurant was probably going to get rid of the dish anyway. 'We (the three owners) don't necessarily like it ourselves.'" The article also mentions another area restaurant that sounds suspiciously like it whisked the tortured goose off the menu as soon as it was advised that the picketing was about to start. You be the judge.

OLD MACDONALD, WATCH YOUR BACK - COWS HOLD GRUDGES

Depending on how the credentials of these researchers shake out (from the sketchy reporting - all of it from Australia, BTW - "professor of Animal Welfare" is all I can make out), this could either be a comical little tidbit or the start of a snowball. But two scientists claim that "cows have a complex mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships and become excited by intellectual challenges." These people are prepared to demonstrate that "cows are capable of strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety about the future." The red flag is that "the findings have emerged from studies of farm animals that have found similar traits in pigs, goats and chickens. They suggest such animals may be so emotionally similar to humans that welfare laws need to be reconsidered." Well, yeah, that would be great, but if the actual researchers are saying that, it sounds like they'll be easily dismissed by the mainstream - their experiments were pre-arranged to prove a point, and only the USDA can get away with that.

NOVEMBER MAD COW TEST SKIPPED

Turns out that mad cow back in November, that was supposedly cleared of BSE, was not tested with the same battery of tests that confirmed the 2003 mad cow. Consumers Union has publicized this and demanded a retest: "The USDA limited its confirmatory testing in November 2004 to the immunohistochemistry (IHC) test, which it describes as the 'gold standard.' The result of the IHC test was negative. USDA did not perform the Western blot test, even though it had previously used both IHC and the Western blot test in confirming the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, from Washington State in December, 2003. The USDA also sent material from the 2003 Washington State cow to the United Kingdom for further review of its results. Scientists in Japan and Belgium have reported that suspect cows may be negative on the IHC and still register as positive on the Western blot. Such cows are universally regarded as infected." Hmmm. And we should believe the USDA's analysis on this because... ?

MORE HUNTER-BASED TERRORISM

I suppose the rationalization for people not considering hunters terrorists despite the group's record of shooting-to-kill multiple defenseless citizens every year is that the killing is "accidental." Same with this story, except once again, hunters' seeming predeliction for illegal activity as the basis for those accidents seems to get swept under the rug. "Jason Hoskey, 26, lit a campfire when he got lost hunting on Sept. 27, 2003. The fire spread after he fell asleep. Flames had been banned in the area because of extreme fire danger. Prosecutors said Hoskey also violated the ban by smoking several cigarettes." The fire in the Mendocino National Forest, started by Hoskey's illegal campfire, burned 6,058 acres and cost $33 million to suppress, and Hoskey's fine is set at $18 million. Hey, here's the silver lining - if he actually does find a way to pay it and gets financially wiped out, he can legitimately use that "subsistence" excuse for continuing to indulge in his hobby! (Killing, that is, not firestarting.) In the meantime, remember: Wiping out 6,000 acres of habitat, destroying an entire ecosystem or more, killing countless animals and costing our government millions in order to follow your cult: Not Terrorism. Setting an SUV ablaze in a parking lot: Terrorism. Got it?

INGESTING URINE MAKES YOU PEE?

Newsday reports that "Researchers have found yet another problem that hormone pills taken at menopause seem to make worse, not better: incontinence. The findings came from the same landmark government study that has linked the supplements to a higher risk of heart attacks, strokes, breast cancer and dementia."

The study, published in JAMA, found that of 27,347 women, those on estrogen pills for one year were 53 percent more likely to develop urinary incontinence than were women taking dummy pills. The article fails to mention the somewhat related fact that the main source of estrogen is pregnant mares' urine. Weird, huh?

USDA IN PANIC MODE ON VEGANISM

The USDA solidified their role as apologists and promoters of the dying meat industry with a wild claim that "There's absolutely no question that it's unethical for parents to bring up their children as strict vegans," backed up by the nonsense that "Animal source foods have some nutrients not found anywhere else." Well, sorry, but a) there sure as hell is a question as to your wacko claim, and b) no, animal source foods have ZERO "nutrients not found anywhere else." Yet these charges are reprinted without challenge or even cursory examination by so-called journalists.

What's Lindsay Allen's basis for these definitive statements? It would be laughable if the situation weren't so tragic for the subjects and ominous for the notion of truth in our culture: Rather than study the first-world vegans she's supposedly talking about, in controlled, quantified experiments against first-world meat-eaters, Allen bases the hyperbole on a meat-industry-funded "study" in Kenya whose conclusion was obvious before it was already done: Malnourished children living on nothing but corn and beans saw their health improve when their diet was diversified with the addition of meat and milk. What a shocker, eh? Note that there was no comparison with malnourished children whose diets were diversified with the addition of, say, greens, or even multiple types of beans. In other words, nothing even approaching an actual vegan diet that first-world parents feed their children; nothing that could possibly back up such a far-reaching claim.

The BBC, which before its smackdown over the Blair-Iraq situation was a pretty credible news outlet, is one of the worst offenders here, not only leaving the central claims unexamined but adding a forum parroting the USDA's framing, "Are vegan diets harmful for children?" rather than, say, "Can you believe anything uttered by these paragons of deception, collusion and incompetence?" The Scotsman is a little better, leaning on the scotsman Paul McCartney, who concisely observes that "These [studies] are engineered by livestock people who have seen sales fall off." But like other outlets, they headline the article with Allen's BS statement, and allow her to lie about the funding, something that's easily checked just by looking at the abstract. (Check for the phrase "National Cattlemen's Beef Association") It's a shameful day for journalism and for truth, which means it's a great day for the USDA and their corporate puppet masters.

UPDATE 2/28: It's interesting that the USDA believes that theoretical harm to infants from a lack of meat-eating, based on one study of third-world kids, is worth making international headlines over, while actual documented harm being done to hundreds of thousands of U.S. children from meat-eating merits no mention whatsoever (and of course, this is only one source of major harm out of many, as we document here every day): "Lower IQ levels linked to mercury exposure in the womb costs the United States $8.7 billion a year in lost earnings potential, according to a study released Monday by researchers at a New York hospital. The Mount Sinai Center for Children's Health and the Environment combined a number of previous studies to determine hundreds of thousands of babies are born every year with lower IQ (search) associated with mercury exposure." The article goes on to note that the EPA estimates that "about 8 percent of American women of childbearing age have enough mercury in their blood to put a fetus at risk." Even low-balling that population estimate at 100 million women, that's 8 million women in this country putting their unborn children at risk for permanent damage by their consumption of fish. You'd think that might merit some mention, but... huh. Nope.

UPDATE 3/1: Commentators both inside the vegetarian movement and elsewhere are beginning to question the bizarre logic behind Allen's screed. Notably, in The Scotsman (again! - is it really the Paul McCartney connection?), Dr. Mark Porter uses his "Medical Notes" column to blast the whole escapade: "At first glance, Allen’s findings do seem worrying, but scratch the surface and her conclusions appear to be built on shaky foundations. Her research was carried out on 544 African schoolchildren whose vegan diets consisted of little more than starchy maize and bean-based foods - a much poorer quality diet than one would expect to find among even the strictest vegans in the UK. Her findings fly in the face of existing research that suggests vegetarian children brought up on a carefully balanced diet often grow faster than those who eat meat."