Day 030 - 03 Oct 94 - Page 29


     
     1        specifically on diet and cancer.
     2
     3   Q.   Just to go back to your statement, moving on a little bit
     4        ----
     5
     6   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Can we put that volume away?
     7
     8   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  Just to go back to the point about the
     9        recommendations.  You say in your statement:
    10         "Recommendations by all these bodies are harmonious and
    11        consistent with those on heart disease".  Do you want to
    12        just briefly expand on that?
    13        A.  Well, you notice, of course, that the word -- the term
    14        used is not "identical" or some such term; "harmonious",
    15        "consistent" I think are the correct terms.  In the case,
    16        for example, of diet and cancer compared with diet and
    17        cardiovascular disease, the advice, for example, on fat is
    18        not identical but is harmonious, in that for
    19        cardiovascular disease, generally speaking, the advice is
    20        to cut down on fat but, in particular, to cut down on
    21        saturated fat.
    22
    23        If you look again at the government white paper, "The
    24        Health of the Nation", you will see the recommendation is
    25        to cut fat by a certain percentage, but to cut saturated
    26        fat much more than that.  The evidence on cancer is not
    27        specifically to do with saturated fat.  Again, wishing to
    28        avoid a small lecture on the subject, the evidence on
    29        cancer points at fat generally, not saturated fat in
    30        particular.  But when you translate those different
    31        strands of evidence into a public health policy, it is
    32        evident that the kind of advice you would give as a matter
    33        of public health policy to the general public on both
    34        these major diseases is going to be similar.
    35
    36   Q.   The UK government accepted the recommendations
    37        specifically on diet and cardiovascular disease in 1984,
    38        was it?
    39        A.  Well, the first COMA report which was rather equivocal
    40        was in 1974; the first COMA report that was unequivocal,
    41        or pretty much unequivocal, was 1984.  There is a further
    42        report which is due to come out next month, but in between
    43        times there was the document Mr. Rampton has been looking
    44        at, I think, which is the grey COMA Report, not
    45        specifically on diet and cardiovascular disease but on
    46        diet and western diseases generally, the so-called DRV
    47        report, which came out in 1990.
    48
    49   MR. RAMPTON:  1991.
    50 
    51   THE WITNESS:  Thank you. 
    52 
    53   MR. MORRIS:  Move over in your statement to page 4, you make a
    54        point here about the complexity.  You say that the science
    55        of the links between diet and cancer is complex and that
    56        the judgment based on the evidence is straightforward.  Do
    57        you just want to elaborate a little on that?
    58        A.  It goes back to what has been mentioned in court
    59        already earlier today, which is that if the task is to
    60        review all relevant and reliable scientific research on

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