Day 023 - 13 Sep 94 - Page 26
1
2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It has hardly come through, you see. If I
3 hold it up like that. (Indicating)
4
5 MR. MORRIS: Yes, it goes up to about 35 per cent lighter
6 green.
7
8 THE WITNESS: Yes. Mine is the same problem; it is black and
9 white.
10
11 MR. MORRIS: Right. Does that imply to you that this group,
12 whatever they call themselves, the Health and Education
13 Authority of this country, are stating that in their
14 opinion or in this pamphlet to the public three per cent
15 of all cancer deaths can be preventable by dietary
16 changes?
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They based the graph on information in the
19 Causes of Cancer by Richard Doll and Peto, Oxford
20 University Press. That is where they have taken that.
21
22 MR. MORRIS: Yes. They are backing that position in terms of
23 advice to the public?
24 A. Yes, indeed. You know, if you read the bit on the
25 left they make the point that we do not know how to
26 prevent some cancers largely because we do not know what
27 causes them; some are suspected such as diet but not
28 proved which is the point, the stand, that I have been
29 taking.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Could you just tell me, what is the three
32 per cent which Doll and Peto think it is proved are?
33 A. I am not quite sure.
34
35 MR. MORRIS: Do you think that might be caused by -----
36 A. They are saying it is caused by food rather than
37 alcohol.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I am not in the alcohol. I am in the
40 food column.
41
42 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, one might get a clue from page 18,
43 second subheading, second paragraph -- just a clue.
44
45 MR. MORRIS: Sorry, what was that?
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Page 18.
48
49 MR. RAMPTON: Under "What You Eat".
50
51 THE WITNESS: We do know that certain strange things that one
52 might eat, and if this is meant to be a worldwide
53 analysis, for example, in certain parts of China they are
54 very partial to eating bread which has gone mouldy with a
55 particular fungus. They have a very high incidence in
56 that area of oesophageal cancer.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They refer, among other matters, to cancer
59 of the gullet being more common among Japanese people who
60 eat young bracken shoots.
