A vegan couple, Sergine and Joel Le Moaligou, went on trial this week in France for neglect in the 2008 death of their 11-month-old daughter. The parents fed her only breast milk, and an autopsy found that the child suffered from a vitamin A and B12 deficiency — caused, prosecutors say, by the mother's diet. The couple had also ignored a doctor's advice to get the baby, Louise, treated in a hospital for bronchitis, trying natural remedies instead. Is it wrong to compound the parents' grief by putting them on trial? (Watch a discussion about the case.)
This is the wake-up call vegans need: Charging the parents "smacks of Big Brother," says Sarah Pope at The Healthy Home Economist. But maybe that's what it takes to "communicate a clear message to other vegans: Abstinence from all animal foods is a danger to one's health and most particularly, your baby!" Vegan moms run a "huge risk" that they, and their breast milk, will lack B12 and other vital "nutrients only found in animal foods, such as true Vitamin A."
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