Ethics: Why killing animals is morally wrong

Molly,
You wrote: ” I can see how standing up for the animals will help, but i see that researching into bettering methods and conditions for animals destined for slaughter is a better way to say 'no' to animal exploitation. It seems a more practical method to help them.”

You are evading the moral question. You are recognizing that animal abuse is wrong. Animal abuse is wrong because animals have a moral value. But if animals have a moral value, they also have the right to not be used as a resource, including the right not to be killed by humans.

“If you think that any sentient nonhuman life has a moral value, then it is irrational to deny that all nonhuman life has moral value. To put it another way, if you think that dogs or cats (or whomever) have moral value, you cannot logically exclude cows, fish, pigs, and chickens from the moral community. And having moral value means that we cannot use animals as a resource. Therefore, veganism is what follows from the simple recognition that animals are not things. If animals have any moral value, we cannot use them as resources. Peirod.” [Quote: Gary Francione]

About improving conditions:
“Animals are property. There are laws that supposedly protect animal interests
in being treated “humanely,” but that term is interpreted in large part to mean that we cannot impose “unnecessary” harm on animals, and that is measured by what treatment is considered as necessary within particular industries, and according to customs of use, to exploit animals. The bottom line is that animals do not have any respect-based rights in the way that humans have, because we do not regard animals as having any moral value. They have only economic value. We value their interests economically, and we ignore their interests when it is economically beneficial for us to do so.
At this point in time, it makes no sense to focus on the law, because as long as we regard animals as things, as a moral matter, the laws will necessarily reflect that absence of moral value and continue to do nothing to protect animals. We need to change social and moral thinking about animals before the
law is going to do anything more.”
Quote: http://www.believermag.com/issues/201102/?read=interview_francione
Furthermore, the article you quoted isn't science. It is just assuming that an anemia was caused by a certain diet without any evidence. Also in this day both non-vegans and vegans get deficiencies.

Vegans don’t get deficiencies if they eat a starch-based nutritious diet with the possible addition of B12-supplement.
There are e.g. several meat eaters that get B12-deficiency: http://drmcdougall.com/misc/2007nl/nov/b12.htm