Day 256 - 04 Jun 96 - Page 34
1 nurse your own children than it is to feed them with a
2 bottle; is that right?
3 A. Right.
4
5 Q. That is not diet related either; is it?
6 A. It depends on what one -- a mother's milk is certainly
7 diet, so the infant -----
8
9 Q. I am talking about the benefit for the mother, not the
10 child.
11 A. For the mother? Right, I think that is apparent.
12
13 Q. Also, it would appear -- I am not asking you to classify
14 these in order of magnitude at the moment -- it would
15 appear that the longer the child is breast fed, the greater
16 the reduction in risk for the mother; is that right?
17 A. Yes, that is what the data tend to show. But I suspect
18 there are some limits on that one, too.
19
20 Q. What about the consumption of oral contraceptives as a risk
21 factor?
22 A. Yes -- a modest, very modest effect. It creates a very
23 modest risk.
24
25 Q. Again, except in the most ludicrously literal sense, that
26 is not a dietary consideration, is it?
27 A. Right.
28
29 Q. The majority of those things that I have mentioned --
30 I have not of course mentioned all the things such as body
31 mass index, height, if you like -- but the majority of
32 those things are related to social, and not dietary,
33 considerations, are they not?
34 A. Related to -- I am sorry?
35
36 Q. Social, rather than dietary considerations?
37 A. Yes.
38
39 Q. When you did your China study -- and I apologise for having
40 to ask you this, because I have not had the opportunity of
41 reading that fat book which you brought with you -- did you
42 measure all these various things: the amount people smoked,
43 the amount they drank, when they had their first children,
44 how many children they had, and so on and so forth?
45 A. Every one of them.
46
47 Q. Every one of them. Are all the data available to us in
48 published form?
49 A. Yes, because that book is -----
50
51 Q. Is it possible to -- I had a quick glance at your smoking
52 data, for example.
53 A. Yes.
54
55 Q. Is it possible for lawyers -- who, in your field, are
56 laymen -- is it possible for us to interpret those data
57 without the help of an analysis?
58 A. Rather broadly and somewhat superficially, yes. Those
59 data that are in that book there, are presenting basically
60 what we call univeric correlations or associations and
