It's cool. I had to do some re-reading. I get lost in a lot of these types of threads so I imagine it's not hard to misunderstand my meaning.
You aren't addressing much of what I brought up. Firstly not all medication is "life-saving" in the sense that the patient will, at that moment, die without the medication. The vast majority of medication and medical treatment seek to lower ones risk of developing some condition. As my example shows, people act in ways that raise or lower their risk of death all the time and we don't describe those actions that raise your risk of death (e.g., smoking, driving a car) as some how impossible or not feasible. So, I ask again, is it just that the animal derived medical treatments that save a life in the moment that are vegan or are all medical animal derived medical treatments vegan? If the latter, and I ask once again, would it be vegan for someone with iron-deficiency anemia to eat animal foods rich in heme-iron (e.g., beef, oysters)? That is, if one is going to allow animal derived products when there is some perceived health benefit from doing so why would that stop at medicine?
That would be strange considering they have different meanings, I assume that there is some confusion over at the Vegan Society.
I don't think this is particularly clear and, as above, the phrase "as far as practical and possible" is much different than what is stated in their definition. The problem with switching to "practical and possible" is that its rather vague, how exactly does one determine what acts are practical or impractical? Wouldn't this have to be determined on an individual basis and not by some overreaching dogma? Avoiding meat, for example, is often impractical....does that mean its vegan to eat meat in such cases? In order for this to be clear, they would have to clarify what they mean by "practical", until they do so I think they are just side-stepping difficult issues. Also I don't see why just because some act, such as avoiding the flu vaccine, may raise your risk of certain diseases that they are impractical or impossible to avoid. After all, avoiding the flu vaccine is much easier than avoiding meat, dairy, etc. The only difference is that in general avoiding the vaccine has health consequences where as the latter doesn't. So the critical idea here is not in terms of what is or isn't practical or possible, but instead of what does and doesn't benefit you. I don't see how you can justify the use of animal derived medical treatments unless you agree that its okay to exploit animals so long as their is a benefit in doing so....but then you undermined veganism.
I wouldn't call the Vegan Society a cult, just a commercial organization pushing a ideology, but I don't see how this is an issue vegans would be able to determine for themselves unless you redefine veganism into something more personal and less dogmatic.
You don't think eating meat and dairy have health consequences....?
Okay, but even still, the same reasoning you employed can be used to justify the consumption of animal flesh from the grocery store. The issue, of course, is that by consuming some good you're promoting future production of that good....that applies to drugs tested on animals just as well as food products.
The health consequence of consuming meat and dairy depend largely on the type of meat and dairy, but in general consuming small amounts of meat or dairy isn't going to negatively impact your health. But whether or not meat is healthy doesn't have much to do with the point I was making.
) if it helps convince others to harm animals, themselves, and the planet less.
My comments about the commercial nature of veganism weren't made in this context, instead when considering whether veganism was social movement or not.
I'm not so sure how similar our views are but I don't necessarily think of vegans as being on a different side as myself, instead I view veganism as a distraction from serious animal welfare, animal rights and environmental issues. For example, in the case at hand, veganism doesn't provide a clear answer nor rational for whether one is justified in using medical treatments that are either derived from or where tested on animals. I think when you unpacked the issues, as I've tried to do briefly, you undermine parts of traditional veganism (e.g., dogmatic veganism) when you allow for the use of such medical treatments.
at the "tofurkey/gardein man"
