Why Health-Based Vegan Advocacy May Harm More Animals Than It Saves

Abstract While many animal advocates emphasize health benefits when they promote veganism, this paper argues that such a strategy rests on shaky foundations. This paper raises three objections to health-based vegan advocacy. First, the health argument faces several epistemic limitations: health is multidimensional, requiring explicit axiological choices about which outcomes matter; and nutritional epidemiology faces severe methodological constraints, including reliance on self-reported data, heterogeneous study designs, and insufficient longitudinal follow-up particularly in randomized controlled trials. Second, health recommendations may inadvertently increase total victim numbers through substitution from cow and pig meat toward chicken meat. Third, the health argument weakens ethical discourse by framing animal advocacy as instrumental to human wellbeing, offering no foundation for addressing non-dietary contexts—including wild animal welfare and harms caused by emerging technologies. A reformulated approach identifying limited situations where health considerations may appropriately supplement ethical arguments is proposed, though significant risks persist even in these cases.