Lawyer: Birth Defect, Not Vegan Diet Caused Baby's Death

POSTED: 1:39 pm EST January 20, 2005
UPDATED: 1:57 pm EST January 20, 2005

MIAMI -- A Miami-Dade County couple charged with manslaughter have a new attorney today, and he's says the pair are innocent, claiming their vegan lifestyle had nothing to do with their daughter's death.

Joseph and Lamoy Andressohn are accused of contributing to the death of their 5-month-old daughter Woyah by keeping her on a raw food diet. But attorney Ellis Rubin said something else caused the girl's death."

This case is right out of the 'Twilight Zone.' It is perfectly obvious that the little girl did not die from malnutrition as the state has charged," Rubin said. "In reading the autopsy report it is perfectly obvious that there is a gland that controls the immune system and growth that was missing in this little girl."

Rubin is referring to the thymus gland and hopes experts sworn testimony will vindicate his clients.

The autopsy report that Rubin referred to concluded the parents did not feed an adequate diet to their children but classified the death as an "accident." Prosecutors called it manslaughter and child neglect. Investigators have said that at the time of Woyah's death, she weighed just 7 pounds, which was less than her birth weight."

That is not true. There are five different weights -- conflicting weights," said Lamoy today.

Joseph said that when he gets his four other children back he will permit them to eat whatever they want. He said when the children lived with him before, they wanted to eat raw food because they saw him and his wife eating that type of diet.

The Andressohns have not seen their other children since 2003.

http://www.local10.com/news/4112198/detail.html

You know, I grew up with a friend whose family religion didn't believe in doctors. He once broke his leg in a bicycle accident and they wouldn't take him in. He still limps a little.

This kind of sounds like that to me. Veganism is as much religion as it is a nutritional choice. Even if the girl had other issues, did the parents try to get her treated? A 5-month-old, 7-pound baby would throw me into a state of crisis. I'd be doing whatever I could to help her gain weight. Were they? I doubt a Vegan diet is appropriate for her, in any case.

I'd never put my daughter on a low carb diet, but then I think this case quite probably is more about a type of religion than it is nutrition.

Now see. . . if we were as twisted and devious as PCRM and PETA, we would be publicizing this all over the web. . . about the DANGERS of a vegan, plant-based diet.

We'd have a website called www.vegandietwarning.com. And we'd have someone suing because their child got sick on one of those faddish diets that force kids to gorge on leaves and stems and roots until they get sick.

But, that would be stooping to their level.

Don't forget spamming vegan forums about how the PCRM is a liar.

5 month old babies are not supposed to be eating food yet, so what were they feeding the baby? Raw air? Breast milk from the mother would result in growth for the child even if the mom was vegan. Formula is not raw, but highly processed.

Here's an article from the Miami Herald, published in 2003 ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Posted on Tue, Jul. 22, 2003

Raw-food vegetarian ate steaks, report says

BY TERE FIGUERAS

tfigueras~herald.com

A Homestead couple whose infant daughter died of malnutrition subjected the girl to ''cleansing'' enemas and punished their other children for straying from a raw-food diet -- even as the father smoked cigarettes and indulged in the occasional steak, according to documents released Monday by the county medical examiner's office.

Lamoy, 27, and Joseph Andressohn, 34, are charged with aggravated manslaughter for the May death of their 5-month-old daughter, Woyah. Prosecutors contend that the girl, who weighed seven pounds, died from malnutrition brought on by her family diet of uncooked fruits, grains and vegetables.

The couple's remaining children, who were also suffering from malnutrition, have been taken into custody by Florida's Department of Children & Families and are in a foster home.

The doctor in charge of Woyah's autopsy wrote that the Andressohns did not intentionally starve Woyah -- noting that her parents gave her a bottle when she cried.

But the diet was severely lacking in nutrients for a baby: The bottle she drank from shortly before her death contained a mixture of wheat grass, spinach, tomato and avocado.

Her stomach held nothing but air and eight ounces of a ''grassy'' smelling liquid and even her body and stool had the same grassy odor, according to the documents.

Lynne Pochurek, the assistant public defender representing the Andressohns, did not return calls for comment Monday.

In trying to piece together the diet and habits of a family whose youngest child died weighing less than she did at birth, Dr. Reinhard W. Motte of the county medical examiner's office spoke with police and the medical director of the Child Protection Team, reviewed interviews with two of the Andressohns' surviving children and requested samples of the family's recipes.

CASE FILE

According to the medical examiner's case file, Lamoy and Joseph Andressohn gave Woyah wheat grass enemas -- and allowed her 6-year-old brother and 4-year-old sister to assist -- because they thought the child was toxic.

The other children also received enemas as well, according to the 6-year-old, who was interviewed by the state attorney's office.

''When children ate cooked food, they were given enemas as punishment,'' wrote Motte.

Friends and neighbors have described Joseph and Lamoy Andressohn as loving but eccentric, devoted to a raw-foods system that required lengthy preparation and strict adherence.

But according to notes of the 6-year-old's interview, Joseph's clean-living philosophy stopped short of cigarettes.

STEAK, POTATOES

Motte also wrote: "The parents are vegetarians, though the father smoked and occasionally ate a steak and potatoes meal which annoyed his wife.''

The Andressohns have been following a vegetarian diet while in jail -- unable to make $100,000 bond -- by bartering their meals in exchange for raw vegetables and salad, according to correction officials.

If convicted, they face up tp 30 years in prison. Woyah's body is being preserved as her parents seek an independent autopsy.

Herald staff writer Justin Willett contributed to this report.


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From other articles I read about this, apparently the baby was breastfed until she was around 3 months old, but the mother stopped because her nipples were cracked and bleeding. It's so sad, because cracked nipples are preventable .. but no professional guidance was sought, not even a midwife or natural health practitioner (the parents shunned doctors).

Doreen

If this is all true (I have become very sceptical of news just lately) then it is truely sickening and worse still that the parents still believe they are not to blame. Nothing in this world is worth risking the lives of your children and religion or other beliefs be damned.

That's just sick and wrong...

With all due respect to intelligent veg*ns, these two are a couple of nutjobs. I hope the other kids are together and safe.

I thought the thymus was a defunct gland that our bodies have evolved beyond needing, but is still there. Can someone clear this up? What does the thymus do?

The thymus gland is an important part of our immune system, along with lymph nodes, the spleen and bone marrow. From Wikipedia:

"The thymus is part of the immune system. In its lobules lymphocytes mature into T cells (where T stands for “thymus”) that behave in different ways according to their type. Some are passed into the bloodstream where they perform vital immune functions. Others remain in the thymus to give rise to future generations of T cells."

The full article can be read here.

hth

Doreen

I don't care who you are or what your personal beliefs may be, once you stop breastfeeding a baby and see she's rapidly losing weight (and had to be crying constantly to be fed) it's just cruel and abusive to withhold medical treatment...so sad that this entire episode was completely preventable and so easily remedied. What are people thinking????

Ugh, I wish I hadn't read that article. That poor baby, those poor kids. I'm gonna go hug mine now. <sigh> Doesn't matter what they claim......7lbs at 5 months, any normal, sane parent would have sought help way before that.

Nutcases are nutcases, no matter what they choose to eat. These people have problems that go WAY deeper than whether or not they eat animal products....