After a Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine survey criticized the nutritional value of lunches served at Albuquerque Public Schools, a nutrition coordinator for the school system says she never would have cooperated with the survey if she had realized that PCRM was an animal rights group.
Stephanie Fila, nutrition coordinator for APS, told the Albuquerque Tribune that she didn’t realize PCRM was an animal rights group advocating a vegan diet when she responded to their survey. According to Fila, the APS lunches meet all USDA requirements and added that,
Real physicians would not recommend a vegan diet for growing children.
Jeanne Stuart McVey, while acknowledging that Physicians Committee for Responsible MEdicine actually has very few physician members, defended the nutrition survey saying,
We are advocates. But we really look at the science. We promote healthy diets, and there are so many studies showing that meat is just not the healthiest thing.
McVey also tried to distance PCRM from People for the Ethical Treatment, claiming that PCRM no longer receives funding from PETA,
. . . in the past, PETA might have supported one of our animal-testing programs, but we do not get funding from them now.
Of course McVey forgets to mention The Foundation to Support Animal Protection which appears to have been set up specifically to allow PETA to fund PCRM while hiding the relationship between the two groups.
Source:
APS: Lunch study unfair. Frank Zoretich, Albuquerque Tribune, September 4, 2004.