I initially wrote about Evolution Diet, and its promoter Eric Weisman, in 2009. In my first article, I primarily addressed the irresponsible and false advertising for the product, and I only touched briefly on Mr. Weisman’s bogus academic credentials and anti-scientific philosophy. Then a few months ago, thanks to information from a reader, I wrote an update which specifically addressed Mr. Weisman’s long history of violating the laws governing his work as a chiropractor as well as those regulating the practice of veterinary medicine. Beyond simply having a unscientific and utterly false set of beliefs about pet health and nutrition, and an egregiously misleading and inappropriate approach to marketing his products, Mr. Weisman was also clearly a scam artist with no regard for the reasonable and appropriate laws governing veterinary and human medicine.
Fortunately, it now appears that finally, almost 30 years after the first action taken against Mr. Weisman in 1982 by the Minnesota Board of Chiropractic, Mr. Weisman will face criminal charges for his actions. According to news reports, he will face 58 counts, including practicing human and veterinary medicine without a license and animal cruelty. I have argued before that the legal system does not effectively control even dramatic cases of quackery and medical fraud, and it is disappointing the Mr. Weisman has been able to continue to profit from taking advantage of sick people and the owners of sick animals for so many decades. But it is encouraging to see him face at least some consequences at last.
The news reports contain some quite horrific examples of Mr. Weisman’s conduct. He allegedly prescribed nutritional and supplement “treatments’ for people with cancer, diagnosed and treated animals with cancer (including some who did not actually have cancer), and consistently falsely represented himself as trained and qualified to diagnose and treat both human and animal illness.
Perhaps the most disturbing story for me as a veterinarian was of a cat Mr. Weisman brought to the veterinary hospital at the University of Minnesota.
Weisman brought in a cat he suspected had kidney failure and cancerous lesions, the complaint said. According to the U’s veterinarian, the cat had neither – it died of pneumonia, was unable to absorb nutrients from the food it ate and had broken bones in each of its front legs. The suspected cancerous lesions, the veterinarian said, were actually scabs caused by the cat walking on its joints instead of its broken feet, the complaint said.
That someone capable of such cruelty could present himself as a public benefactor and a martyr seems inconceivable, but Mr. Weisman’s delusions include just such a perception of himself.
[I am] being attacked because I try to help make a better, more just society. I try to help those that do not have help or are not getting good assistance.
This case illustrates quite starkly the real harm and suffering that can result from irrational and unscientific beliefs about health and disease, and from the actions of individuals who are so blindly committed to such beliefs that they are capable of inflicting terrible harm on those who come to them for help while still seeing themselves as heroes and victims of government and the conventional medical profession.
It’s good news he’ll be prosecuted again, but the following concerns me:
“58 counts, including 38 gross misdemeanor counts of practicing veterinary medicine and general medicine without a license and 20 lesser counts of criminal contempt of court, animal cruelty and violating a city ordinance.”
Sadly and very unfortunately, those little misdemeanors and lessor charges will most likely be plea-bargained to death and very little justice served to Weisman. I guess in MN, you need several misdemeanors of animal cruelty to make it a felony.
I think part of his whatever-sentencing should include the immediate takedown of all his websites, and an investigation of his Evolution Diet manufacturing plants. Since there is no animal protein in the diets, wouldn’t that be slightly enough to investigate further and subpoena his “clients”? How many other cases might be out there but the owners too scared, underserved or impoverished to take legal action against him?
Perhaps that poor kitty the article noted, could have been saved if having been fed a real diet, received real veterinary care by an owner who gave a damn. Really, Weisman, kidney failure? What a parasite on society, you make me violently ill.
Thanks for all this. Had my own issues with Weissman several years ago and had filed formal complaints with the veterinary board and the ag board — both had open files on him.
Hope that all his businesses get shut down and that he gets the book thrown at him.
Thanks for your response. It is unfortunate that in such cases, people who are dissatisfied often remain silent and people who are convinced the individual has helped them often come forward in his defense. This can create the impression that no harm has really been done.
Yes, I think there are quite a few people who have remained silent over the years for fear of being blamed for being a bad caretaker by both sides. You are absolutely right that this creates the impression that there ha been no harm done when that is clearly not the case.
There is a detailed summary of Mr. Weisman’s legal troubles in the City Pages News.
Thanks for the link, just saw it now.
Back in 2003 after doing hundreds of hours of research on feline nutrition I found a couple of products in the US that claimed to be nutritionally complete AAFCO approved vegan foods for cats. One was Vegecat from Harbingers of a New Age, and the other was Evolution Diet from Eric. Because Vegecat required some work in preparing a complete food, since the product is a supplement to complete the missing components in a vegan diet for cats, I decided to first give the Evolution product a try to see how my feline son would respond. For the first 18 months my 12 year old son was doing fine using the kibble which I tried to feed soaked as suggested. However, in late 2005 I learned the horrors of FLUTD that was most likely caused by the wide variation in formulations that the Evolution product was experiencing in the manufacturing process. After taking him off the Evolution to use the Hill’s Prescription Diet for urinary control, a few short months later he succumbed to hepatic lipidosis through starvation, possibly related to his dietary change.
Since that time I have added hundreds of additional hours of study on feline nutrition, adopted a new feline son, and switched him to a Vegecat based feline diet, which has been very successful for the past six years. I monitor his CBC and urinalysis every six months to make sure that his diet remains healthy.
Although Eric appeared to have a well meaning heart, In many of the conversations with him I was disturbed that he was more concerned about the protection of his source of income rather than the quality of his feline product. And since my experience with Eric is only related to the feline products, I cannot comment with any authority about the efficacy of his canine products. I found the formulations of the Evolution feline kibble to change on a regular basis with the palatability becoming a major issue. I was also disturbed by the Gray, et. al., study regarding the two vegan cat food products that showed a deficiency in the nutrient assay for both products. In the case of the Vegecat product it appeared to be a manufacturing error that was subsequently corrected by Harbingers through a procedural change to prevent future mistakes. But in the case of the Evolution product, Eric insisted that the product was fine and that there must have been an error in the research study by the Veterinarians which did not require him to make any changes. This was consistent with my assessment about the wide variation in the formulation of his feline product, which led to my conclusion that the Evolution product was a vegan cat food that I could no longer endorse. In fact, since 2005, I have warned people to avoid his Evolution feline food, especially the kibble. My research indicates that any kibble, whether Evolution or any other dry food, is incompatible with a healthy feline metabolism. The 10% moisture content creates a dangerous dehydration condition that causes or exacerbates gastro-intestinal problems and other related health issues.
I became aware of the many issues surrounding Eric’s background back in 2004 and this added to my opinion about his ability to maintain a safe and effective diet for his feline patrons. So it does not surprise me to hear of his recent troubles with authorities.
I currently formulate a vegan feline food product in cooperation with Harbingers using their Vegecat product as a base material. Harbingers has a long history in excess of thirty years of success with feeding both cats and dogs using their specific formulations and recipes. Not only is it possible to safely feed cats a vegan diet that is nutritionally balanced and complete, but it is my personal opinion that the ideal diet for most domesticated cats would be based on the product I have formulated and tested on a small sample of cats. Lacking the funds to do a science based double blind study testing our vegan product, most of my observations are anecdotal and somewhat empirical. However, my gut feeling is that eventually such a science based study will prove that although cats are obligate carnivores, they can be nutritionally enhanced with well formulated vegan foods to provide extended lives that are far healthier than based on conventional commercial foods from the established “pet” food industry.
My personal experiences with these two vegan products have been positive for Vegecat and emphatically negative for Evolution. I know that there are thousands of satisfied Evolution feline food consumers, but I am also aware of a sizable number of very dissatisfied Evolution feline food users as well. I happen to be among the ones in the dissatisfied column. Evolution was a good idea, but it seems to have failed on a number of fronts, partially due to the failures of Eric and his staff. Hopefully the Evolution Diet brand will continue to “evolve” into a better product with some stability in its manufacturing. Time will tell.
Dan Robinson
Vegan Cat Institute
I think we agree on a number of points, including the fact that one cannot automatically assume natural history dictates optimal diet. However, I’m afraid we also disagree on several points. To begin with, a vegan diet could possibly be made that is nutritionally acceptable for cats, but there is not plausible reason to think it wold be better than a meat-based diet for an obligate carnivore. Feeding a cat a vegan diet strikes me as inappropriately imposing our ethical principles on a species dependant on us for their welfare. I say this as a vegetarian sympathetic to those ethical concerns, but also as someone who believes that it is not appropriate to force them on our pets.
I also disagree, far more strongly, with the argument that is acceptable for a company to have the financial resources to create and market a pet food but not to scientifically test it properly, and that such testing is probably not necessary for vegan cat food anyway since your gut feeling is that your theories are right. Gut feelings, and customer satisfaction, are virtually useless as guides to what is true and false in nutrition, medicine, and healthcare generally, and it is a tragedy that so many recommendations for the care of our pets are based on them, with the inevitable results that many of these recommendations are mistaken and lead to harm rather than benefit. Your personal ad hoc research is admirable, and all pet owners should make an effort to be informed. But unfortunately, you have mistaken being informed for being an expert, and you do not fuly appreciate the limitations of individual experiences and intuitions. Scientific research is not a nice afterthought to confirm what you already know. It is essential to lay any claim to really knowing at all. Time will tell only if you or Harbingers or someone takes the respnsibility for applying rigorous scientific methods to finding the real answer, instead of relying on theory, intuition, and individual experiences.
Skeptvet and Dan,
Skeptvet, I would back up Dan as far as the claim that a Vegan diet can outperform a traditional pet food product. The reasoning as follows:
A species appropriate diet for a cat is mice. (indecently mice are vegans so cats are getting vegan stomach contents from the mice) Plus cats like to chew on grass etc sometimes. Also my wife from Russia explains that many homeless cats in Siberia are fed mostly left over vegetables, bread and a little fish once in a while.
I am not making much of a point so far, just pointing out that cats often have more than JUST meat in their diets. Ok back to the main points.
I understand that cats need Taurien, but did you know that regular pet food is processed with enough heat to destroy the natural Taurien? A vegan (synthesized ) Taurien is added after the fact. So on that score vegan cat food with added vegan Taurien is exactly the same Taurien as canned or kibble pet food.
The strongest thing to mention is that an organic free-range live mouse is the species appropriate diet, fur and all.
If your not feeding your cat live mice then you are already making a compromise. And the compromise we are making with regular industry standard pet food is so far from the cats original died that there is ample room for the argument to be made that a vegan diet could be the lesser of the two evils. Perhaps not evil at all but even healthy…
1 Factory Farmed processed meat to begin with does not contain mice. A mouse has the EXACT nutrients that a cat needs. (not a coincidence, hundreds of thousands years of evolution, or if you believe in creationism then God made mice perfect for cats etc…
2 Factory Farmed Processed meat contains literally hundreds of chemicals on average. Including;
a- antibiotics to keep sick animals alive long enough to be slaughtered despite disease
b- hormones to fatten them up quicker for slaughter thereby increasing profits
c- Pesticides in the mostly gmo grain that is part of a force fed cannibalistic diet.
d- Vaccines. Many vaccines are injected to keep the traumatized animal alive on its unnatural diet and mad house stressful environment.
Many of these vaccines have highly controversial ingredients such as mercury (second most toxic substance to man. the first is atomic radiation, and Adjuvant (immune system artificial stimulants that save money by allowing less of the vaccine to be needed)
The problem with artificially stimulating the immune system is that you end up with a plague of auto immune disorders such as allergies, psoriasis, arthritis and certain neurological disorders. This is also why I opt out of vaccines and the guaranteed risk that they bring and instead take my chances at a possible risk of catching whatever it was the vaccine is trying to protect me from, all the while minimizing that risk by supporting a healthy immune system, instead of screwing with it with adjuvant and poisoning the entire system with toxic mercury.
Note; take the example of the H1N1 vaccine. The doctor injects it into you, usually illegally (by not following the law that requires him to present you with the balance of benefit to risk. But if the doctor drop a shot on the floor he is not allowed to dump it into the garbage as Mercury is classified as a dangerous toxic substance and is not fit for our land fill. It must be disposed of in accordance with dangerous materials disposal. But injecting it into a one year old infant is ok.
Almost everything that is pumped into a Factory Farm animal is still present by the time is arrives on the supermarket shelf or in our pet food. There are no current laws that require disclosure on the label. The reason is because no one would by it if the ingredients were clearly understood. And the industry would fail. The people with interest in the industry lobby the government to look the other way as they sell chemically infested meat to your family and pets.
Imagine what hell would break loose if a naturopathic doctor was caught selling a vitamin c supplement or say an energy drink that had mercury adjuvant, hormones and cow antibiotics without out any warning or labelling? He would be hauled of to the courts and successfully prosecuted. So why does the meat industry get a pass?
note: the animals that die from the stress and disease of the living horror and nightmare of the factory farm, despite the Herculean effort to keep them alive with the toxic cocktail of injections and additives are not wasted.
They are partially used as pet food and partially fed back to the animals with the grains. You see the three D’s qualify an animal for pet food or grain kibble additive, Dead, Dying, Diseased. They are regulated to not sell it to humans as the thee D’s are legally unfit for human consumption. But sold to our pets, who then die early from kidney, liver and other diseases.
To add insult to injury, factory farmed animals that are forced into cannibalism such as cows, pigs, goats, chickens are natural Vegetarians in the first place. Truly a wicked crime against nature; the whole nasty business of factory farming and industrial slaughter houses. I don’t believe in people being sent to hell or true evil in general but I can see why some people do…
I would continue to be Vegetarian even if it were proven to be unhealthy. Animaltarian reasons are more than enough.
I argue that this unhealthy, unnatural and immoral source of protein, fats and nutrients can be sourced from a vegetarian base, perhaps not overall outperforming an organic free range mouse species appropriate diet but far out performing the Factory Farm chemical cocktail forced cannibal not fit for human consumption dead dying and diseased tortured soon to be corpse option.
Oh ya and Dan, get your product tested.
There are a number of problems with your argument here:
1. You are confusing “natural” with “optimal.” The natural diet is that which an animal would eat without human intervention and which formed a major selection pressure in that species’ evolution. In the case of domestic animals, there is really no such thing since their evolution was shaped by artificial selection by humans, including feeding. Cats are, arguably, only partially domesticated, so it’s reasonable to argue that they have a natural diet of small prey (birds, mice, insects, reptiles, ect depending on the locale).
The optimal diet is that which promotes the greatest health and longevity. The natural diet tells us something about what a species evolved eating, and so it is relevant to what the optimal diet might be, but the natural diet is almost never the optimal one. Animals in nature, and human unter/gatherers, almost always die much younger and live with much more illness than those in more “artifical” circumstances, and a big reason why is the deficiency in calories and nutrients of the natural diet. So this is just the naturalistic fallacy in action. Cats living off their own hunting of live prey are almost always less healthy, more ridden with parasites, more prone to infectious disease, and much shrter-lived than cats fed by humans.
2. Commercial diets are cooked, and while this does educe the levels of some nutrients and raise the availability of others, this is well-understood and accounted for in the making of these diets. Taurine deficiency is almost non-exiistent since supplementation of diets with taurine began, so it makes no sense to argue that vegan diets are no less deficient in taurine. You can, of course, supplement a vegan diet with taurine, but since the source of this nutrient is animal products, the diet then ceases to be a vegan diet. Humans and dogs can manufacture taurine from precursors, so they can do without it in the diet. Cats can’t, so the only option would be a synthetic taurine made in a lab. Is this what you consider “organic” or “naural?”
3. Your claims about vaccines are mistaken and mostly yths which I’ve written about many ties before. You are welcome to read my articles on the subject here, though I know you likely won’t.
4. Most of your claims about conventional agricultural products are also unproven or disproven. Extensive sttudy over decades has found no nutritional or health benefits to organic foods (see my articles here on the subject). Organic is probably a better option for environmental reasons, but the health arguments are myths. I hear such claims often, and I have yet to see anything that even vaguely resembles proof that any of the diseases you mention are caused by the vaccines or foods you complain about.
5. If you think supplements and herbal remedies are safe and never found to be full of heavy metals or contaminates, read this: http://www.skeptvet.com/index.php?p=1_21_What-s-The-Harm-
6. As for the ethics of industrial animal agriculture, here I agree with you, which is why I am a vegetarian myself (though not a vegan as I am ok with sustainable wild-caught seafood, and local, ethically produced dairy and eggs). This, however, has nothing to do with the health claims you are making, nor with the blatantly criminal and unethical behavior of Eric Weisman and his food.
Hi Skeptvet,
First, let me just say that I appreciate what you do, and I thank you for it.
That being said, I disagree with a couple things you have said in this thread.
1. Taurine can be synthesized, and in fact usually is, when added to cat food. Synthesized taurine is vegan, so a cat food with taurine in it is not thereby no longer vegan.
2. You said “feeding a cat a vegan diet strikes me as inappropriately imposing our ethical principles on a species dependant on us for their welfare”.
I have heard this kind of claim made a lot when discussing ethically appropriate diets for animals (something I’ve thought a bit about), and it has always appeared to me to be fallacious.
Compare “training a dog not to bite strangers strikes me as inappropriately imposing our ethical principles on a species dependent on us for their welfare”. That would be silly, right? And yet it seems to be the same logic as your claim.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that all vegans should feed their pets vegan food, but at least that line of argument isn’t convincing.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean with respect to taurine. If I said that taurine comes only from animal sources, then I was incorrect. I understand there is a synthetic taurine in common use, and so presumably this makes a truly vegan cat food that is nutritionally adequate for cats at least theoretically possible. I do know, however, that some foods claiming to be both nutritionally adequate and vegan have been tested and failed to meet these claims (Nutritional adequacy of two vegan diets for cats J Am Vet Med Assoc. December 2004;225(11):1670-5.), so in reality, I’m not entirely certain this combination is possible. The more improtant question, of course, is whether it is important t try and make such a diet.
Let’s look at the ethical issue from a different perspective. We have ethical concerns about eating animal products, yet we still wish to have carnivores as companions, so those carnivores should be forced to eat a diet without animal products even though making one that is nutritionally appropriate is difficult, and many such carnivores will end up having to subsist on an inadequate diet. It seems a pretty weak line of argument. We are, in many cases, trading one kind of animal welfare for another, and doing so only to satisfy an emotional desire for an animal companion of a certain species. I do not find this compelling. While I am sympathetic to some of the ethical arguments advanced for a vegan lifestyle (and I have eaten only invertebrats and fish myself for many years due to my own ethical concerns about industrial farming practices), I think if one feels strongly that no animal products should be used for any purpose, or perhaps only in when te need is uite urgent, then it seems more appropriate to me not to own a cat. Forcing the cat to live according to an ethical principle that is fundamentally counter to its very natrue strikes me as a bizarre etical choice.
Hi Skeptvet,
First, with respect to taurine, above you said “You can, of course, supplement a vegan diet with taurine, but since the source of this nutrient is animal products, the diet then ceases to be a vegan diet.” That is the quote I was disagreeing with.
Second, you are sliding between two arguments. If it is true (as it very well may be) that it is impossible for a cat to survive and thrive off of a vegan diet, then yes, I think we both agree that feeding a cat a vegan diet would be ethically problematic.
But your claim above was that it is wrong to feed a cat a vegan diet because it forces our morality on an animal in some unacceptable way. You also seem to be hinting at this when you say “Forcing the cat to live according to an ethical principle that is fundamentally counter to its very natrue strikes me as a bizarre etical choice.”
Again, if it harms the cat, then yes, that would be strange. But the very fact that it is not the diet the cat evolved to eat, and is therefore “unnatural”, is no *ethical* argument against it. As a vegetarian yourself, you should recognize this. After all, haven’t people have tried to convince you that being a vegetarian is a “bizarre ethical choice” by pointing out that our evolutionary ancestors ate meat? That’s a bad argument there, and it’s a bad argument when applied to animals. We impose our ethical standards on animals all the time by training them to behave in certain ways. Diet is no different–unless a healthy vegan diet is impossible, but that would be a separate argument altogether.
There’s a general lesson here: You can’t get from descriptive/evolutionary claims alone to an ethical conclusion.
Yes, I see where I was mistaken regarding the taurine issue, and as I said it is theoretcially possible to use synthetic taurine to make a nutritionally adequte vegan diet for cats.
I am also familiar with the naturalistic fallacy and the is/ought problem, and I am not arguing that what is “natural” is what is right. My objection to the idea of feeding a vegan diet to cats has a practical and a philosophical component.
On a practical basis, I am still not convinced that such diets are safe and nutritionally adequate. While it may be theoretically possible for them to be, the couple that have been rigorously tested have not met essential nutrient requiremnts for cats. And given the great deal of effort needed to make a healthy vegan diet, I am skeptical that very many people will do so properly, so I think the chances of cats ending up eating inadfequate diets seem rather high. And there is the possibility of nutrients we are unaware of that exist in animal food sources which cats require in small amounts but which are not supplied in diets which do not include animal ingredients (after all, we had been keeping cats for quite some time before we discovered their requirement for taurine). So I don’t think we can entirely dismiss the posisbility of harm being done, which requires us to have a compelling reason for this feeding choice.
Philosophically, I am not convinced there is a strong ethical argument for imposing out standards on our companion animals. Should we prohibit cats from killing other animals because killing is wrong? Should we require them to cover their genitals, have sex only within monogamous relationships, or worship the deity of your choice? The notion that our ethical rules should be observed by species strikes me as difficult to justify rationally. It serves a psychological purpose in making us feel better about our own behavior, but this does not seem a compelling reason to require other animals to eschew species-typical behaviors. And while we certainly do modify the behavior of our companion animals for our own convenience or at a whim all the time, I’m not sure the fact that we do this justifies it. Isn’t that a bit of an is/ought argument as well?
Proper diet/nutrition is not the same as behavioral training. To compare the two in any ethical sense at all, is just silly.
I’ve just posted an interview with Eric Weisman for the latest episode of The Vegan Option internet radio show, <a href="Cats: Ethics.
I do ask Mr Weisman about the issues of evidence and trust you have blogged about, so readers might enjoy it.
I did see that, though I haven’t yet heard the interview.
While I appreciate the ethical motives behind seeking a vegan food for companion animals, I am afraid the very idea of interviewing Mr. Weisman on the subject is problematic since it implies he has some knowledge or expertise in the field of veterinary nutrition. Unfortunately, this is not true. His ideas about how to feed dogs and cats are completely made up out of his own beliefs and imagination, and they are not validated by any objective science. It’s a bit like interviewing an astrologer about the future of NASA.
It is probably possible to produce a healthy vegan diet for dogs, and maybe even for cats, though that is less certain. There are, of course, ethical arguments to be made both for and against doing so. However, looking strictly at the medical and health issues, Mr. Weisman is a completely inappropriate source of information, and any suggestion that his advice or recommendations should be heeded seems to me unethical since it puts pets at risk if their caretakers follow his advice. Perhaps you would better serve vegan pet owners if you contacted board-certified veterinary nutritionists to discuss the subject.
Though not specifically about veterinary issues, here’s another resource your audience might appreciate: The Skeptical Vegan
Ian, thanks for providing the interview. You did a great job of asking tough questions for sure, but not surprising, Weisman simply evades, invokes conspiracies involving Big Pet Food Manufacturers, and insists that consumer testimonials “is all we need” to provide evidence of his claims.
What is not clear from comments here is that ALL Charges of Animal Cruelty, All Charges of Practicing Veterinary and Human Medicine were dropped because they were fraudulent charges in the first place. The City of Little Canada did not just drop the charges for no reason. They knew from the prior investigation that charges were false and without merit. The City of Little Canada acted on behalf of the Board of Veterinary Medicine and The Drug Companies because that board wants to prevent competition with conventional treatment methods even if the conventional methods mean premature death of people’s beloved dogs and cats.
Surley, some of the people reading this website know about the horrific experiments drug companies do on sentient Animals and for no good reason except to get government grants. Yes: Drug Companies make vast sums of Tax Payer Money to do horrific experiments on thousands of innocent animals. Why aren’t they being charged with torture and cruelty? The University that helped bring the cat charge against me has done some of the most horrific experiments on animals you can imagine. Why aren’t they being charged? Vivisection is biased science because experiments are manipulated for the expected outcome. Why do you think there are so many law suits over new drugs that have killed and mamed so many people (and Animals). Really that is another discussion, but it is one that deals with huge numbers of animals being tortured and killed and yet no news paper or CBS, City Pages, NBC or CNN will ever talk about it except Jane Valez Mithchell because the Drug companies pay huge amounts to thee networks for big drug commerical contracts.
Over the past 22 years I have been rescuing, spaying and nuetering homeless dogs and cats that I have taken in and placed in numerous adopted homes throughout the Twin Cities.
The charges here went down in 2011 and again ALL the charges practicing Vet and Human Medicine and Animal Cruelty were dropped because so many people came forward and totally disproved the City’s Case. The investigation proved that the City’s Case ws false, but they brought the charges forward anyway. I have the investigation documents, so I know they knew what they were doing was fraud. There were 3 charges of contempt of court that involved advertising that pets could live longer on Evolution Diet Pet Foods. While it is true that pets can live a long life on our food, we can not make any guarantees about added life or health. It is true that it seemed that like a guarantee and I pleaded guilty to that charge 3 times and paid $381.00 in fines.
That was it. The City wanted to know if I wanted the rescue dogs they had taken from me back, but because I payed to keep them alive so long, they were able to find good homes and so I was willing to release them without malice.
It is true that I did l never had no reason except to embarass me and the work I do to help people and animals around the country everyday.
Last but not least I want to talk about my the loss of my chiropractic licience. I lost it becasue I was developeing a effective low cost treatments for cancer, tumors and various form of organ failure in dogs and cats. The Board did not want me to continue developing these procedures because it was not under the chiropractic scope of practice. I was warned, but I the procedures became so effective that I got “excited” and continued to this day. I wish I had handled the issue more appropriatly in a lab with a government grants etc. and I did try to do that at one point at the same University that was doing torturing animal experiments and in fact the same univ. that said I was cruel to that cat.
Why I made the mistake and did not handle the situtaion corectly is because I could not think clearly at the time. I was bruttaly attcked by 3 thugs in a parking lot at night and I sustained a severe brain injury. I was almost killed after being kicked in the head and face many times. Maybe that is why I am different. At any rate, I survived and for the most part recovered, but I could not adaquately defend myself especially with the poor lawyer I chose. It was a bad time in my life and yes I did make a big boo boo to say the least.
Through all of it, I did my best to keep rescuing Homeless Dogs, Cats, Ferrets and others. In my mind I am doning as much as I can do to help Animals everyday. I have bumper stickers on my car. I do a Cable TV Program telling people how important it is to treat ALL animals with compassion and kindness AND NOT TO EAT THEM.
To me life is way too short. I want to die knowing that I have done as much as I can to make this world a better place for ALL Animals to live including Humans. I hope you will too.
And don’t believe everything you read in scummy sex promoting newspapers like City Pages or for that matter any right wing rag or TV station that makes huge profits by selling drugs and surgery.
It is clear from your statements that you see yourself as a miracle worker and a martyr, and you see those who challenge you as villains. Such an extreme, black-and-white view is irrational and arrogant.
I won’t attempt to judge the merits of the charges against you since I don’t have access to the evidence. You may or may not have been guilty, but you were not tried so the evidence is not available to the public. We all know that people escape prosecution all the time whether or not they have actually committed the crimes they are charged with. And most criminals, convicted or not, claim to be innocent or misunderstood. So I remain skeptical of your version of the story.
The notion that the veterinary medical board, the board of chiropractic, the doctors at the school of veterinary medicine, the city investigators and officials, and all the others who have challenged your claims and your behavior are somehow evil or out to get you is a paranoid type of conspiracy theorizing often used to justify extreme or irrational points of view. It is self-serving and not credible.
I share your concerns about the treatment of animals and, as I have mentioned before, I am a vegetarian myself. But that doesn’t excuse deluding yourself and pet owners into thinking you have some magical cure for “cancers, tumours, and organ failure in dogs and cats” that no one else has figured out and then promoting that imaginary cure without any evidence that it is real other than anecdotes, which anyone with the least familiarity with science understands are unreliable and prove nothing.
You may have the best of intentions, and I don’t doubt your sincerity. But your methods are untrustworthy, your claims are not only unproven but highly unlikely to be true, and I do not believe what you do is actually beneficial to the animals you claim to care about, or their owners. I understand you are incapable of self-doubt, but I hope the information here, including your own statements, will help people realize that they cannot trust the products or services you provide and that they should seek help from doctors who have proper training and experience in legitimate, science-based medicine.
I for one, do not believe much of what comes out of your mouth, Eric, you are defiant and you’ve shown your proficiency in defiance quite well.
Put up the evidence for your claims. It’s really quite simple. Until then, your miracles, testimonials and out-of-this-world grandiose only serves as a red hot warning to innocent pet owners to stay as far away from you and your products as they can.
Pingback: Cats: Ethics. With Erin Red, Evolution Diet’s Eric Weisman, and vets Lorelei Wakefield, Andrew Knight, and Jean Hofve | THE VEGAN OPTION internet radio show and blog
Pingback: Vegan Cats? | Skeptical Vegan
There’s no such thing as “forcing a cat to adopt your ethics.” That isn’t a thing. Humans *already* make ALL the ethical decisions for our nonhuman family, and those decisions include what we feed them. So the argument that “we’re unfairly or immorally asking them to follow our ethical stance” is nonsense.
Secondly, it IS immoral to use nonhuman animals to feed our nonhuman family. This is a fact, and not open to opinion. It’s immoral to do so because if it wasn’t, then it wouldn’t be immoral to also murder humans and feed them to our nonhuman family. This item explains every detail having to do with why this is true:
https://legacyofpythagoras.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/are-humans-superior
Third, this means that as long as we have a chance to feed our nonhuman family, including cats and dogs, Vegan food, then we have a moral responsibility to do so. In other words, as long as our nonhuman family will not be less healthy on Vegan food than they would on non-Vegan food, we have a moral obligation to stop harming other nonhumans to feed them. The lives and freedoms of those other nonhumans we use, harm and kill are not worth less, morally speaking, than the lives of each cat and dog. To understand why this is a fact, read the link above.
So, we can see that immorally using multiple other animals to feed one cat or dog is an egregious example of the harmful, irrational double standard we have based on the morally irrelevant criteria of species membership. We’re using and throwing away more than one sentient being in order to cherish just one sentient being. When applied to human contexts, this is called “slavery,” “murder,” and other such names.
Fourth, to use the argument “we don’t have enough data to say that Vegan food is ok, and that is why we shouldn’t feed cats Vegan food” makes no sense, since it’s a cyclical argument that reinforces itself to the detriment of nonhumans (and humans) everywhere. There will never *be* any data on this until we actually do it. The morally responsible thing to do would be to try feeding a cat Vegan food for a set period of time, monitoring their health all the while, until we can be sure they will not develop any health problems. Most, if not all of the problems they could develop would not immediately threaten their lives on presentation of the first symptom. Struvites, for instance, are detectable in almost all cases long before they become a threat, and the diet can then be adjusted accordingly.
Regarding the moral arguments, I have numerous links that are all excellent resources regarding this issue, here:
https://legacyofpythagoras.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/nonhuman-refugees
Pleas take some time to look at them.
Thank you sincerely,
Colin Wright
Sorry, but all you are doing is claiming that your beliefs are facts and that the rest of the world should simply accept this an behave accordingly. This is not a compelling argument, though it is the standard way in which religious convictions are presented so that no evidence is required to support them. The ethical issues are a good bit more complicated than you suggest, particularly given that the scientific evidence does not exist to show whether we are harming our feline companions by feeding them a Vegan diet.
As for that evidence, the fact that it does not exist means only that we don’t know now, not that we will never know. There is no circularity here. The problem is that you have confused haphazard individual feeding of Vegan diets by individual cat owners with scientific study of the health effects of such diets. Such research is needed if people wish to use such diets, but the evidence must be generated before we start selling these diets with claims that they are safe and healthy, which at this point is unknown and, based on what we do know about cat nutrition, probably untrue.
If the evidence of whether we’re harming cats does not exist, then what do you call the hundreds, perhaps by now thousands of cats currently thriving on Vegan diets?
How do you propose we find out that they are doing so? If you say it’s wrong to feed them Vegan before we know, then how could a scientist do a study, being that it was unethical to even try? Or do you think that humans should betray their own moral values and cause animals to suffer in order to stop some animals from suffering? Do you even care about whether nonhumans suffer? Have you actually viewed any of the proof I gave you that cats thrive on Vegan food, such as the multiple videos explaining WHY Vegan food is not harmful, or the Facebook groups with tons of people with thriving Vegan cats?
As I have already explained, random reports by individual owners don’t prove these diets are healthy any more than they prove homeopathy cures cancer, vaccines cause autism, or any of the other thousands of false medical claims supported by anecdotes like these. If you can’t understand why personal experience is not equivalent to scientific research, then this discussion is destined to go nowhere.
As for the simplistic rhetorical questions you ask, they are simply an expression of your own beliefs, not a serious attempt to ask me about mine or engage in a discussion. If you really want to have a discussion about the ethical issues involved, you can’t simply paste links wholesale that repeat what you believe and expect to be taken seriously. You have to be willing to make reasonable arguments and present evidence, and to take respond to the arguments and evidence of those who disagree with you. I will try to give you the benefit of the doubt and respond to some of your questions even though you have so far shown no willingness to consider any point of view but your own. But Facebook videos and testimonials are not evidence, and questions like “Do you even care about nonhuman suffering?” are simply trolling and won’t be tolerated.
Any scientific research in which there is uncertainty about the outcome involves some risk, and thus raises some ethical issues. Does the evidence generated provide enough benefit to enough individuals not taking part in the study that the risk to those who are is justified? What steps are taken to protect participants? Who gets to decide whether a patient takes the risk of entering a trial if they cannot make the decision themselves? Contrary to your assertions, these are not simple questions with obvious answers. In the case of veterinary research, it is true that we make the decisions for our pets, so it is generally accepted that owners have the right to enroll pets in research studies so long as the owners are properly informed about risks and benefits. These means that controlled studies could be done ethically so long as appropriate procedures were in place to inform owners and monitor patients for harm.
It is also generally assumed that owners have the right to choose what to feed their pets. However, ownership does not convey absolute rights on owners, and both cruelty and neglect laws reflect this. Is it acceptable for a cat owner to feed a Vegan diet to satisfy their own beliefs about the ethics of eating animal foods? I think it is, though I disagree with the decision myself. However, what is unethical is to market such diets as safe and healthy when there is no direct evidence this is true and there is actually some reason to believe they may not be. Ultimately, I think the ethical failing here is Mr. Weisman’s, who has elevated his personal beliefs to the status of established fact when it is no such thing, and who then misleads cat owners by advertising his opinions as facts.
LOL! So that’s what I get for trying to have a serious conversation with a fanatic. Shoulda known.
Well darn, wha’d I miss! (no explanation necessary)
since there are a number of non meat eaters posting, if you like star track I suggest you watch the episode where they locked the captain with the bald head up with someone who needed to eat meat in order to survive.
Sir, I read your first article: you mentioned “steak”I would assume that you were not a “vegetarian “ then. Now you eat fish. Step in the right direction. But you are not meat free.
50 years from now- the medical industry will look at things differently and perhaps will reject things, I.e. the food pyramid that has gone through several changes in decades, that seems backed by authority today. Yes, proper documentation of evidence based results are required. But as a consumer, I’ve looked at Royal Canin and Hills Science diet- and wondered at the motivation after seeing the ingredients. Please- I am just a layman, but one with eyes, no- these companies and the vets that tout them – do need to be examined. I don’t know about Eric Weismann, but what I do know, is there is a plethora of unhealthy pet foods, antibiotics in meat regardless of how regulated, are unhealthy, and meat is the source of cholesterol along with highly processed foods. Do I need a degree to know this?
Sir, I read your first article: you mentioned “steak”I would assume that you were not a “vegetarian “ then. Now you eat fish. Step in the right direction. But you are not meat free.
50 years from now- the medical industry will look at things differently and perhaps will reject things, I.e. the food pyramid that has gone through several changes in decades, that seems backed by authority today. Yes, proper documentation of evidence based results are required. But as a consumer, I’ve looked at Royal Canin and Hills Science diet- and wondered at the motivation after seeing the ingredients. Please- I am just a layman, but one with eyes, no- these companies and the vets that tout them – do need to be examined. I don’t know about Eric Weismann, but what I do know, is there is a plethora of unhealthy pet foods, antibiotics in meat regardless of how regulated, are unhealthy, and meat is the source of cholesterol along with highly processed foods. Do I need a degree to know this? What gets me is not your observation of pet owners opinions, it’s when you assert something is harmful as if we all should know this. For example- “false medical claims- such as autism is caused by vaccines”
Most doctors agree- and yet there is controversy- perhaps more children are correctly diagnosed today, and perhaps there is a causal correlation between chemicals and vaccines- and later complications. I just don’t like the attitude that a doctor always knows best, because credentials say so. We are discovering new things each day. Antidotes are useful in seeing the number of experiences positive or negative- but the real test is time.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=20&q=scholarly+articles+do+vaccines+cause+autism&hl=en&as_sdt=0,47&as_vis=1#d=gs_qabs&t=1659834896931&u=%23p%3DO0OJV611zMUJ
1) What I personally eat is, of course, irrelevant, but FWIW fish, dairy, and eggs but no other animal proteins.
2) Yes, science continues to learn more, and as it does medical recommendations change. That doesn’t mean any alternative to the current recommendations is necessarily correct or better, so again irrelevant to any of Mr. Weisman’s claims.
3) “Meat is the source of cholesterol” is also irrelevant. For one thing, dietary cholesterol is no longer considered an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease in humans, so that is an outdated notion. And dogs and cats don’t suffer from atherosclerotic disease or the negative health effects of consumption of fats the way humans do, so again irrelevant to claims about the relative health effects of vegetarian and meat-based pet foods.
The claim that vaccines cause autism is not based on “credentials” but on overwhelming scientific evidence. If you cannot even accept this very obvious fact, than you cannot claim to have a perspective on the issue that is at all reasonable or based on facts of science.
i always thought turkeys got heart attacks from eating cholesterol.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0368131969800839
Pingback: ‘Study’ Claiming Vegan Cats Are Healthier Is A Mockery Of Science – Pain In The Bud