Vegan couple nearly starves child
 

NEW YORK — A vegan couple in New York City were busted for starving their baby daughter — by denying her breast milk and formula, feeding her only nuts, fruits and vegetables, and allegedly failing to get her medical help for severe malnutrition.


Joseph and Silva Swinton, both 31, were arrested Friday and charged with reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child for failing to properly feed and care for their baby, Ice.

The Swintons, who are being held in lieu of $20,000 bail, face up to seven years in prison if convicted.

Sixteen-month-old Ice Swinton weighed only 10 pounds, looked like a 2- or 3-month-old and was half the normal weight of a child her age when authorities discovered her close to death last November.

EMS workers rushed Ice to from her Queens home to Long Island Jewish Hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with developmental problems, a distended abdomen, fractured bones, a vitamin deficiency called rickets and a lung disorder — all caused by malnutrition, authorities said.

The Swintons, who say they approach veganism as a religion, fed the child a diet of "ground nuts, fresh-squeezed fruit juices, herbal tea, beans, cod liver oil and flax seed oil," a complaint said.

Even when doctors told the couple their baby was on the brink of death in November, both parents insisted "there was nothing wrong" and were resistant to treatment, the complaint said.

After a four-month hospital stay, the New York City Administration for Children's Services placed the baby in a foster home.

Several months on a healthy diet have helped the 20-month-old to achieve the functions of a 10- to 12-month-old baby, but the child is still struggling, authorities said.

Warren Silverman, a lawyer representing the mother, questioned why there was such a long delay to file charges.

"If Long Island Jewish Hospital at that time thought that something was amiss, why wasn't something done right away?" he asked.

The Swintons have been allowed supervised visits with their daughter — but ACS has asked that a judge order them stopped after the father said he thought the child was getting "chubby," sources said.

Neighbor Toyin Savage said she was "shocked."

Another neighbor said she saw the baby recently.

"I asked how old she was and they said, 'Almost a year.' She looked very small. They said she was a vegetarian — I didn't think about it at the time."
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stupid motherfuckers..

Stupid non-meat eaters. Won't they ever learn?

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This is just a modern rock song,
This is just a sorry lament,
We're four boys in our corduroys,
We're not terrific but we're competent.

it's not about being vegetarian/vegan.
obviously there's something wrong with them if they weren't allowing the kid to have breast milk.

Good god...what a dumbass.

exactly...every vegan i know doesn't believe in drinking the milk of animals who are fed hormones. but a mother is supposed to give her child breast milk. it's the natural way. there are also vegan infant formula...these people were just abusive.

Well that's one set of genes that maybe deserved to die out?
I mean c'mon!
Those big fleshy things weren't *actually* made for grown men to play with...that's why they have a spout.
When you've forgotten this...you don't deserve kids...it's better for the whole human race that way...

yeah. exactly. i mean, okay. yeah. that is just so retarded. like letting a baby suck milk from YOUR breast in any way harms animals?

and i know there are tons of vegans who also won't eat dairy products because it's not "natural"

WHAT IS SO NOT NATURAL ABOUT BREAST-FEEDING YOUR KID?? WTF???

jesus fucking christ. either those parents are really stupid or really really cruel.

I always find it funny that vegans won't eat honey b/c it exploits bees.

Maybe the woman thought her breasts were being exploited??? http://www.netphoria.org/wwwboard/rolleyes.gif

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You want to sleep with common people like me

Ice?

ice ice baby....

*suicides*

you'd think such overkill hippy shits wouldn't care if their baby was fat. you'd think they'd also know that babies are supposed to be "fat"

There's nothing more natural than breast-feeding your kid.

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Boot the grime of this world in the crotch, dear.

stop making me quote you.


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pukey

Stop agreeing with her.

you ho!

http://www.netphoria.org/wwwboard/biggrin.gif
http://members.tripod.co.uk/babydavy...es/bunnies.jpg

[This message has been edited by Smiley33 (edited 04-30-2002).]

disgusting.

(the story. although, the man above IS rather gross.)

he's wearing diapies. http://www.netphoria.org/wwwboard/frown.gif

what the hell is wrong with his arms?

diaper rash from hell?

its not that dairy products are unnatural. its that a cow needs to give birth before it lactates, and since dairy farmers dont want lots of calves running around (think about it, 300 dairy cows, each producing a calf, its a lot of extra mouths to feed), they kill the vast majority of newborns (a few will be kept to replace old cows). vegans are opposed to dairy products on the basis that it necessarily involves the killing of that calf

goddamn stupid people from Vegas.

http://www.netphoria.org/wwwboard/confused.gif where'd vegas come into the picture?

hahahahahaha

well, it wasn't me...i don't have a kid, and i aint vegan.

the article said they were vegans! man, that city must just churn out retards.

w3rd http://www.netphoria.org/wwwboard/frown.gif

Those people are messed up. Even if they believe in veganism and follow it "like a religion," they should care more about their child's health than that. Parents are supposed to care more about their child, ideally, than anything else..

uh.. honey isn't necessarily non-vegan. it depends on how "strict" the person wants to be.
bees are not harmed by the production of honey.

yea they've got different level of veganism. so that you can outdo each other "im a level 5 vegan ooooh dag" i bet everyone lies and bumps themselves up a level when they meet other vegans. and i bet they bet it all in poker

People can be vegans and not insane, right???

I bet they would have made GREAT parents for me when I was about 10 years old to present time. They would have given me the perfect diet... great eating habits... and hopefully they would have also given me all the necessary vitamin pills. God, I've always dreamed of parents like that. Minus the malnutrition part. :\

BUT THE HEALTHY SKINNY PART IS GOOD!!!!!!
(Not when you're a 20 month old baby, however).

I wonder what the parents' parents were like.

Vegans get a bad rap. Those people are truly insane.

Currently, the only animal products I eat are fish (organic), eggs (from free-range chickens that aren't fed hormones and shit like that), and well, honey.

I don't think eating animal products is a bad thing at all, but they can make you really, really sick. They usually don't, but there's always the risk. Eating meat and milk products while you're on a course of antibiotics is actually dangerous because it can cause a candida overgrowth in the intestines that may not show up until months or years later, sometimes in the form of chronic fatigue syndrome, and in a dozen different other ways. I'm not copying this from a textbook. I learned this from experience.

So it rather pisses me off that people like that exist and make the rest of us look crazy.

And, incidentally, being a vegan isn't about being skinny. It's just something that happens.

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Boot the grime of this world in the crotch, dear.

oh wow, good for you, you abstain from eating all meat except fish. *claps* http://www.netphoria.org/wwwboard/rolleyes.gif

and delta: i've read vegan literature where they say that it's simply not natural for people to drink milk when they are not infants anymore.

i personally don't really want to give up milk chocolate. and cheese is convenient too. but i'd say at least half my meals are completely vegan.
i don't see how you can eat fish.. ugh.

actually all the vegan people i know are at least "average" in weight. i know more extremely skinny people that eat meat than extremely skinny people that are vegan.

HOW DO YOU GET YOUR CALCIUM IF YOU DON'T DRINK MILK?!?!?! THINK ABOUT YOUR BONES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Lie means that it just "happens". It either happens, or it doesn't...
It has nothingn to do with being vegan or vegetarian.

But what *I'm* saying is, I'm sure if I turned vegan or vegetarian, it would sure as fuck help ME loose a couple of pounds. : (
I know how bad my eating habits are. And I admit, I need help to stop it. It is time for an intervention. : (

Shit, so that's what all the fuss is about? Thanks for clearing it up!

The fact that vegans don't eat fish is a common misperception, Suze. There are lots of different kinds and levels of vegans. Generally, vegetarians are concerned with animal rights and vegans are more concerned with the purity of their food and the absence of antibiotics. I don't eat fish that often either...it's just another option to keep open.

See, my animal rights concerns only go so far. The idea of animals being raised in captivity on antibiotics and hormones bothers me, because it's not good in the long run for the animals or the humans eating them.

And as I said before, my concerns are mainly with my health. The idea of eating meat doesn't bother me, but the hazards of digesting it do. I'm technically a low-level vegan because of the way that I eat, but it's not like I woke up one day and said, "Gee, I'm going to be a vegan." I don't wear it like a badge on my sleeve...it's just my diet, it's not me. I'm not trying to rack up points for depriving myself of as many foods as possible and frowning on the eating habits of others. I just try to eat in the way that works best for me.

As for whoever was talking about calcium, there are just as many ways to get both calcium and protein from vegetable sources as animal sources, and most of them are better and more efficient sources of energy, namely soy milk. I even like the taste better than that of regular milk. It has a richness and slightly sweet and grainy taste that cow's milk doesn't have.

In general, I think vegetarianism and veganism are good things, but people often exploit them and use them to feel superior to other people. The minute that the primary concern isn't what you're putting into your body and it becomes something else, like the need to look down on people who eat differently, the trendiness of it all, etc., it's my opinion that you should just stop doing it because it's not doing you or anyone else any good. The point of it to begin with should be to do you and/or other humans and animals good.

Most vegetarians are actually some of the most unhealthy people I know, because without meat they start to fill up on a lot of enriched flour and dairy products, and miss out on protein because they don't even make an effort to replace it. They don't take care of themselves at all and bitch at other people for doing the world a disservice. When people do this it seems like they haven't even begun to explore the full range of what it means to be vegetarian. If you're saving the lives of animals, but sacrificing your own health and being proud of it, that seems like a pretty shitty deal to me. I've decided to eat vegetarian because I've found that it's a better way to take care of myself, and while a lot of people wouldn't consider that very noble, it's my primary concern.

That was all I was trying to say.

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Boot the grime of this world in the crotch, dear.

[This message has been edited by Lie (edited 05-01-2002).]

uhh..
a) ii think you might have that a little bit mixed up there. i think the vegans would be more concerned with animal rights since they totally avoid any item (including clothing) coming from animals or animal products.

b) fish = meat, what's the confusion there?
there's not really different "levels". you either are or you aren't. and don't take that the wrong way, if you want to eat fish, go ahead and eat fish, but don't say you're vegan or vegetarian if you do.

i don't equate vegan and vegetarian at all.

i was worried that i might have to state my own opinion on this, but you already did. http://www.netphoria.org/wwwboard/smile.gif quoting is so much easier.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/C...OAF/Meat12.jpg
Meat.

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