An Open Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama

            And it is not clear that the soy diet is saving the state of Illinois any money, not when you consider the greatly increased medical costs that have ensued, and the risk to the state of costly lawsuits.  The state of Virginia provides grass-fed beef to inmates at no cost to the state.  Low-risk prisoners raise the beef at Sky Meadows State Park. The surplus is sold to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, resulting in a net gain for the prison budget.  All over the country prisons are instituting creative ways to save money while teaching inmates new skills, including gardening, animal husbandry, beekeeping, food processing, composting and recycling.  Only the state of Illinois has chosen to poison its prisoners instead.

 It is said that a nation is judged on the way it treats its prisoners. The American prison system is predicated on the premise that criminals can be rehabilitated.  To feed prisoners a diet that can permanently ruin their health robs them of any opportunity for rehabilitation, renders them unfit for normal life when they are released, and will impose an unnecessary burden on the state's medical services.  It constitutes a medical experiment and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which must be stopped.

 Mr. Obama, you can stop this cruel soy-feeding experiment with one phone call. I urge you to be that champion of fairness and justice that you promised during your campaign by making that call.

Sincerely yours,

Sally Fallon Morell, President

The Weston A. Price Foundation

CONTACT:

Kimberly Hartke, Media Relations, The Weston A. Price Foundation  kimberly@hartkeonline.com.

The Weston A. Price Foundation is a non-profit nutrition education foundation dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism. The Foundation is spearheading a national campaign to warn consumers about the dangers of modern soy foods. Please visit their website www.westonaprice.org to learn more about the Foundation's Soy Alert! campaign.

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