WASHINGTON, D.C., April, 2005: For the past twenty years, Dr. Neal Barnard has been passionately pursuing his work as founder of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). The news release explains, “The PCRM has successfully waged and won campaigns to eliminate the use of live animal labs in the majority of the nation’s medical schools, challenged federal dietary guidelines, developed the first cruelty-free insulin assay and established the humane seal of approval for charities. In addition to showing that alternatives to the use of animals in medical research and training can be as or more effective than traditional methods, Dr. Barnard also believes it’s important for scientists and doctors to change their perceptions about animals.”
When interviewed by Sagamithra Iyer, Dr. Barnard had the following comments: “It seemed to me that the medical practice did a pretty good job of diagnosing illnesses, sometimes a good job of treating illness, but an abysmal job of preventing them. We did nothing about heart attacks until they came into the emergency room. We didn’t do anything about cancer until you saw it on a mammogram. I thought that was wrong. We needed to bring nutrition into medicine. In 1991 a group of scientists and I held a press conference in Washington, DC, and we announced that a healthy diet consisted of four new food groups: whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes. We completed a randomized clinical trial several years ago as a pilot study. Just a small group of individuals, half of whom went on a typical American Diabetes Association (ADA) diet — a standard ‘healthy’ diet used in most hospitals today that includes chicken and fish — and half on a low-fat vegan diet. We found that the vegan diet was hands down better. It caused blood sugars and weight to drop. These individuals lost an average of 16 pounds in 12 weeks.
“We started the Cancer Project to help people understand about how foods affect cancer progression. We also need to get the word out about prevention. So we have a series of television advertisements to promote a healthier diet and that means a vegetarian one.
“One of the biggest problems is that animal tests sometimes work for manufacturers in inappropriate ways. Because animals behave differently from humans in testing and their results can easily be manipulated by researchers, animal tests have worked well for industry and very badly for consumers. We also need to help the scientific community think of animals in a different way — not just as test tubes with whiskers, throw-away lives.
“I hope that anyone who wants to give to charities will look for the humane charity seal of approval (humane charities that don’t fund animal research) and give only to those charities that have it. Regardless of what cause you are interested in, whether it be cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or Alzheimer’s, there are good charities out there.”
For the full text of the interview conducted by Sagamithra Iyer on Dr. Neal Barnard, including his slightly gruesome account of how he himself became a vegetarian, click source above.