If there’s one thing everyone should know about the phony “doctors” group known as the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), it’s that its leaders are vehement vegetarians who dress up PETA-style PR flacking with an air of medical authority. When PCRM was asked to comment on a recent story about a new USDA beef report, it sent its attack machine into high gear for a newscast in Washington, D.C.:
"These are unhealthy contaminants and people should avoid them as much as possible," said Mark Kennedy, staff attorney for Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. … "The problem is compounding day-to-day because of the way factory farming is creating more and more problems," said Kennedy.
As far as PCRM is concerned, of course, the most worrisome contaminant in beef is the beef part. The vegan organization has a disreputable track record a mile long of sounding alarm bells over animal protein, including perfectly safe foods from hot dogs to milk. PCRM is currently campaigning to take the stuffing (and the sloppy joes and the chicken fingers) out of school lunches. It’s even trying to ban KFC from advertising a new fried-chicken sandwich anywhere near schools, comparing it to cigarettes.
But cheeseburgers and chicken sandwiches aren’t addictive. And they don’t cause cancer (no matter how hard PCRM and its phony “Cancer Project” try to make you believe that tall tale). Food standards on large-scale farms are actually easier to control than in smaller, “free-range” settings. Last year, researchers at Sweden's National Veterinary Institute found that free-roaming animals are more likely to be exposed to bacteria, parasites, and other nasties than livestock confined indoors.
Not that small, organic vegetable farmers have an unimpeachable record when it comes to food safety. The 2006 E. coli bacteria outbreak that killed three people and sickened hundreds more had its roots at a 50-acre organic spinach farm. Last year’s massive peanut recall included both conventional and organic nuts, and dozens of organic food items were not spared from being yanked from shelves.
The bottom line is this: The so-called “physicians committee” (which isn’t a committee of physicians to begin with) is incapable of being honest about food safety because doing so would compromise its vegan agenda. And if you don’t play the sport, you can’t be the referee.