Bacon

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An outfit calling itself the Committee for Responsible Medicine has demanded that a small-town baseball team change its mascot and even the team’s name; the owner suggests that they suck his jerky stick (although he phrased it more politely than I just did).

… The Macon Bacon is a team in the Coastal Plain League, a summer league for college players. The team cultivates a fun, small-town atmosphere, with local families hosting players in their homes and players who grew up in the area coming back to play for the summer.

True to the team’s name, many of the concessions available at games prominently feature bacon, and the mascot is a seven-foot-tall slice of bacon named — you guessed it — Kevin.

It’s this genius marketing that has gotten the goat of a group of vegan activists. An outfit called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has erected a billboard in Macon and sent a letter to the team president suggesting that the Macon Bacon embrace plant-based alternatives. You can’t make this stuff up.

The letter goes on to cite World Health Organization statistics about the links between bacon and various health problems, so you can take all of it with a grain of salt (which this group probably doesn’t want you to have either). ….

The team told them to go pound sand (“the Macon Bacon will be sizzling forever and will not consider a name change. Ever.”, but I was curious about the group demanding the name change and elimination of bacon sales “for health reasons”, Here’s who comprises the “Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine” and what they do:

7 Things You Didn’t Know About PCRM

The Center For Consumer Freedom Team

October 17, 2008

  • PCRM is an animal rights group, not a real “physicians committee.” Contrary to what its name implies, less than four percent of PCRM’s members are actual physicians. Among the group’s relatively few active physicians is PCRM president (and former PETA Foundation president) Neal Barnard, a vegan psychiatrist who claims that cheese is “dairy crack” and “morphine on a cracker.”

  • PCRM’s anti-meat activism is bought and paid for by the wealthiest animal rights activist in America. Through her personal foundation, Animal Rights Foundation of Florida founder Nanci Alexander provides more than 60 percent of PCRM’s $9 million budget. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has steered another $1.3 million to PCRM. This explains why the group’s platform has more to do with the “rights” of animals than the health of people.

  • ….

  • PCRM has been repeatedly criticized by the mainstream medical community. The American Medical Association has called PCRM a “fringe organization” that uses “unethical tactics” and is “interested in perverting medical science.” When he was the AMA’s Vice President for Scientific Affairs, Dr. Jerod M. Loeb wrote that PCRM was “officially censured” by the AMA. That statement also condemned PCRM for supporting “a campaign of misinformation against important animal research of AIDS.” And the American Academy of Neurology has denounced PCRM for “engag[ing] in a multi-year crusade against the March of Dimes including protests directed at March walkers, volunteers, and donors.”

    …..

  • PCRM discourages Americans from making donations to more than 100 respected medical charities, including the American Heart Association, the March of Dimes, the American Cancer Society, the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the American Red Cross, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation—solely because they support disease research that requires the use of animals.

There are so many groups like this with grand-sounding, impressive names, that the media treats seriously; that should stop, and the Macon Bacon’s response is an excellent way to accomplish that.