Day 242 - 29 Apr 96 - Page 36


     
     1        There still remains the question:  Well, is that an
     2        increased risk, a very real risk or still a negligible
     3        risk?
     4
     5        I am going to ask Mr. Rampton if he wants to add anything
     6        in a moment because I may have misunderstood where the
     7        issue is and if he thinks I have he will no doubt tell me,
     8        but that is the way I see it subject to anything
     9        Mr. Rampton says.
    10
    11   MR. MORRIS:  I mean ----
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  We have had similar conversations in the
    14        past, and I think the analogy I used, perhaps not a very
    15        good one, was that if one walked out of this building and
    16        walked across the Strand without using the pedestrian
    17        crossing, you would increase the risk of getting knocked
    18        down.  You still have to ask whether the risk was a very
    19        real one or not.  That does not pretend to be an accurate
    20        analogy but I use it merely to demonstrate what is still at
    21        large.
    22
    23   MR. MORRIS:  Can we just maybe come back on this after lunch.
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  I would like to say something.
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Let me hear what Mr. Rampton has to say about
    28        it first because, at the end of the day -- I am not going
    29        to decide the issues now -- you must just call those of
    30        your witnesses whose statements have been served whom you
    31        want to, but you have to decide very quickly who they are.
    32        At the moment, it is just a question of Mr. Brown, so we
    33        can be specific.  You have to decide whether you want to
    34        call Mr. Brown or not, and Mr. Rampton, if he wants to call
    35        Professor Mason, will have to make an application to me and
    36        then I will either give him leave or I will not.
    37
    38   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I would like to say something for two
    39        reasons.  The first is, as ever, Ms. Steel has not
    40        correctly remembered what the admission actually says,
    41        which is, and I will read it again, I have done it many
    42        times before, but I will read it again: "That there is a
    43        considerable amount of evidence of a relationship between a
    44        diet high in saturated fat and sodium and obesity, high
    45        blood pressure and heart disease" and as I added formally
    46        the other day, though I have said it on many previous
    47        occasions, "It is further admitted that that relationship
    48        is causal in nature".
    49
    50        That is as far as it goes.  It had nothing whatever to do 
    51        with the meaning for which I got leave but which, in the 
    52        end, your Lordship rejected which was, in effect, to assert 
    53        a direct causal relationship between eating the meals and
    54        the onset of the degenerative diseases as though they were
    55        toxic in other words.
    56
    57   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Subject to that rider, I am grateful to you
    58        for reminding me, I have not looked at it for some time, do
    59        you have to say anything about the analysis of what is
    60        still at issue?

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