Penn & Teller's Bullshit series...is bullshit?

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

I’m not sure that this quote is being taken in context. If it is (and if I had to bet, I’d bet that it is), then yeah, hypocrisy is a very fair charge against her. But by searching PETA’s website for “insulin,” I came across this article by her.

In it, she doesn’t advocate that diabetics give up insulin; instead, she advocates that they use other measures to minimize the amount of insulin that they take:

[F]ive years after I became diabetic, I discovered that the real secret to being a healthy diabetic is to adopt a vegan diet. Being able to cut my dosage from more than 50 units of insulin in the morning when I first became diabetic to taking only 15 units today can be directly attributed to not eating any animal products. Instead, I eat lots of legumes, vegetables, and carbohydrates, and I stay away from fat as much as possible. I believe that fat may be more dangerous to diabetics than sugar-a small bag of potato chips sends my glucose sky-high.

When I exercise regularly, I have to take even less insulin! The Stairmaster or 30 minutes of quick walking every day are excellent ways to lower your need for insulin. Because I now use Humulin, a synthetically produced insulin much more appropriate for the human animal, I have regained the muscle mass that I lost when I was on animal-based insulin.

Her science may be questionable, but it appears here that she’s calling for diabetics to take the least-harmful path to animals that still keeps the diabetic healthy, not calling for them to die rather than take animal-derived insulin. That seems to me to be a consistent position.

It doesn’t seem to jibe with the earlier quote, though. If the earlier quote had left off the last sentence–“I need my life to fight for the rights of animals”–it would be innocuous. It’s the last sentence that really grates, with its not-so-subtle implication that those who don’t fight for the rights of animals don’t need their lives as much.

Daniel