The price of meat

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:

WASHINGTON D.C.–– Eating
meat costs Americans $28.6 billion to $61.4
billion per year in extra health care, Dr. Neal
Barnard, Dr. Andrew Nicholson, and Jo Lil
Howard of the Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine reported in the edition
of the peer-reviewed journal Preventive
Medicine published November 21. The
PCRM team based their estimate on studies
of large groups of Americans, mostly
Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists,
whose living habits differ chiefly in eating or
not eating flesh. In every such study to date,
meat eaters have had more health problems.
About 29% of all heart disease is related to
meat consumption, the PCRM team calculated,
costing $9.5 billion a year––but meatrelated
diabetes costs even more, they said,
at $14 billion to $17 billion per year.