Vegans guilty on all counts for malnourishing baby Fri Apr 4, 4:59 PM ET By Harriet Ryan, Court TV A jury in Kew Gardens, N.Y. convicted a vegan couple of nearly starving their baby to death with a strict diet that the prosecutor described as "a path to hell." Joseph and Silva Swinton, both 32, were found guilty in Queens Supreme Court of assault, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child. The couple fed their toddler daughter, Ice, a homemade soy bean and herb infant formula that left the little girl with the appearance of a Third World famine victim and the developmental abilities of a newborn. At 15 months, Ice had no teeth and could not sit up, crawl or walk. The Swintons will face up to 25 years in prison when sentenced at a later date by Judge Richard Buchter. With their verdict, which came after two days of deliberations, the jury rejected arguments of the Swintons' attorneys, who said the couple wanted only the best for their baby and did not realize the harm the diet was causing her. The felony assault and reckless endangerment convictions indicate the panel found the couple acted with "depraved indifference," or recklessness "so wanton" that it is equivalent to purposefully starving Ice. If the jury had found the Swintons simply reckless, they could have convicted them on misdemeanor charges that carry no mandatory jail time. Assistant District Attorney Eric Rosenbaum said the pair treated their daughter "like a gerbil" and called the diet "a grotesque science project." He argued that the couple were well aware that their daughter was sick and showed "willfull blindness" to the problems. "A 15-month-old child who cannot walk, cannot stand and cannot crawl — that tells you that something is very, very wrong," Rosenbaum told the jury during closing arguments. All the panelists had experience caring for small children. None are vegetarians. The girl, who will celebrate her third birthday in July, and her baby brother, Ini, born after the Swintons' arrests, now live with relatives of the couple. (Court papers spell the girl's name Ice, although the parents have spelled it Iice.) The testimony of Silva Swinton was the three-week trial's dramatic highpoint and may have ultimately proved harmful to her defense. She told jurors that Ice "was thriving" on the vegan diet and suggested that it was hospitalizations and medical care ordered by social services that had made her daughter sick. Now that's f*ed up. I hope our resident vegans wouldn't do something like this?
As far as I know, none of the vegans (or vegetarians) on this bbs have any children -- so you can channel your fretful parent energy into preparing for the arrival of your own little one. P.S. If it eases your mind any, all my cats are carnivores.
What these people did was stupid, not because they chose a different lifestyle for their child because there are many familes who have made the similar choices with significantly better results, but because they did not have the education to know what they were doing or the sense to ask for help when problems arose. What puzzles me is the hoping out loud if, because some of us are vegetarians (Mrs JB and I are not vegans by the way), we would also be equally as stupid and irresponsible as this couple. It's like asking if Star Trek fans on the board are as stupid as that couple whose kindergarten-age child could not speak English but could speak fluent Klingon (true story). This has nothing to do with lifestyle choices. It has everything to do with blatant ignorance about the health and safety of a child and the irresponsibility of the parents not to do more to prevent this from happening. To equate other vegans or vegetarians to this couple is tantamount to calling us irresponsible idiots. Amazingly enough, some of us have educations, own businesses and even read and write without the aid of an adult tutor. All that despite the lack of animal flesh in our digestive tract as shocking as that may sound.
When I was born, my parents were vegans. After the breast milk stage, I was fed things like blended up avocado, blended up banana and blended up sprouts. Later, I was given whole wheat cakes and lots of fruit and veggies. People said that I was the healthiest, fattest baby around. So, not all vegans are stupid. In fact, my mother was a trained food technologist at the time when I was born.
I was gonna say the same thing.....Stupid hippy vegans... Not all vegans are stupid or hippies, I have no beef with vegans, but hippies are just wierd.
So, you are going to let one (actually two) bad apple(s) make you decide that all vegans are bad people? So, did you think that all white males that are US born could eventually become terrorists like McVeigh?? Generalizations over one isolated incident is not a good thing.
Is there a vegetarian equivalant to "I've got no beef with you?" "Look pal, I ain't got no tofu with you, allright." I'm being facetious of course.
Uh... no sh*t. Sorry, didn't intend to give the message that I think all vegans are malnourishing their kids. Rhetorical, ya know... Remind me to keep my mouth shut next time I post a thread... I think you read a little much into my question...
Unless I am mistaken and this is a different couple (I doubt it), they were not really giving their baby a vegan diet. Some of the "herbal mixture" contained stuff like fish oil, or something. This really has nothing to do with them being "vegan" and everything to do with them being idiots. Go figure.
both of these sets of parents are f*ed up in a most unimaginable way... ----------------------------------- "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
