Filed under: Britain, Europe, health and environment, United Kingdom | Tags: vitamin-d
Vegan girl, 12, ’has spine of 80-year-old’
Times Online
June 8, 2008
A girl of 12 brought up by her parents on a strict vegan diet has been admitted to hospital with a degenerative bone condition said to have left her with the spine of an 80-year-old.
Doctors are under pressure to report the couple, from Glasgow, to police and social workers amid concerns her health and welfare may have been neglected in pursuit of their beliefs.
The youngster, fed on a strict meat- and dairy-free diet from birth, is being treated at the city’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children. She is said to have a severe form of rickets and to have suffered a number of fractured bones. The condition is caused by a lack of vitamin D, which is needed to absorb calcium and is found in liver, oily fish and dairy produce.
Dr Faisal Ahmed, the consultant treating the child, said he believed the dangers of forcing children to follow a strict vegan diet needed to be highlighted. “Something like this needs publicity,” he said. However, he refused to blame the parents, who are understood to be well-known figures in Glasgow’s vegan community: “We shouldn’t name and shame \. Mum feels guilty about the whole thing and feels bad about it.”
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noworldsystem.com 
Millions of people in India live on vegan diets without vitamin deficiencies, so one does not necessarily follow on from the other. However, in the UK, it’s really important for vegans to get plenty of ultraviolet sunlight in summer to get their Vitamin D to see them through the winter, and obviously this girl didn’t. The other answer is fortified vegan products, which seems somewhat artificial, but ethical.
Comment by calyx March 13, 2009 @ 4:35 am