A court case involving horrific neglect and malnourishment of a baby has been used by many mainstream media outlets to slander vegans and vegan diets.

Even though the judge in the case said the "vegan diet was not on trial", nearly all media reports of the case had the word "vegan" in the headline.

The following news outlets are all guilty of using this sad case of a child suffering from potentially permanent physical and mental development issues to launch a campaign of illogical and irresponsible vilification against vegans and vegan diets: ABC, SMH, The Australian, 7 News, CNN, Sky News, Fox News, News Corp, Celebrity chef Pete Evans and surprisingly The Guardian.

The case has been in court several times since April last year and each time the media has presented the same biased view.

A typical news headline reads "Vegan parents of malnourished toddler sentenced", thus helping create in the readers' minds a causal link between vegan diets and poor health. This is shoddy journalism. This sort of reporting would not be allowed if the word "Vegan" was replaced by a racial or religious group name.

• The media has ignored the fact that the Australian Dietary Guidelines and most international guidelines state that well-planned vegan diets are safe and healthy for all stages of life, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy and childhood.
• The media rarely reports on the tens of thousands of cases of child neglect in Australia, some of which are sure to include unhealthy non-vegan diets that cause malnourishment.
• The media rarely reports on the disastrous health outcomes of the average meat-heavy Australian diet, with more than one in four children reported as overweight or obese and a growing incidence of chronic diseases in children and adults, with heart disease, diabetes, cancer, stroke and high blood pressure all made more likely by diets containing animal products.
• The media rarely reports the many parents who are successfully raising healthy children on a balanced plant based diet from birth, setting them on the path to a healthy old age. Biased media reports about "vegan" neglect is misleading and causes great stress to these parents.

Vegan Australia has covered cases involving neglect by parents who feed their baby a "vegan" diet in this media release.