Day 269 - 25 Jun 96 - Page 13


     
     1
     2   Q.   No, I meant if they were not eating at McDonald's.  Say,
     3        for example, they ate at McDonald's for a ten-year period
     4        once a week or --
     5        A.   As I said, you know, it is very difficult to give a
     6        hard and fast figure on this topic without spending a very
     7        large amount of money and several years research
     8        investigating the relative risk factors of eating at
     9        McDonald's or Kentucky Fried Chicken or, for that matter,
    10        choosing your food in Safeways.  I think that you would
    11        have to have a major long-term research initiative with
    12        very substantial funding to answer this question with any
    13        real degree of precision.  All I am trying to do is to give
    14        a vague guide as to what, and it can be no more and not
    15        intended to be any more than that, as to where one might be
    16        in a ballpark figure.
    17
    18   Q.   Yes?
    19        A.   Now, if you are asking if people do not eat at
    20        McDonald's --
    21
    22   Q.   That was not what I asked, sorry.  If I can just explain.
    23        I am not asking you to give a figure in terms of how many
    24        people would be affected, which was the calculations that
    25        you were doing here.  You have taken a specific example of
    26        somebody eating there once a week for, you know, a large
    27        part of their lives?
    28        A.   Yes.
    29
    30   Q.   In order to get these figures.  But all I am saying is not
    31        going into what percentage contribution they might have or
    32        whatever, if somebody ate at McDonald's once a week for,
    33        you know, ten years or some other similar figure, would you
    34        still consider that as having some kind of an impact on
    35        their diet and therefore influence on their --
    36        A.   Well, there are the two answers to your question.  The
    37        first is this; that the evidence from smoking and heart
    38        disease has, without doubt, shown that if you stop smoking
    39        you reduce your risk.  So I think that is really coming
    40        clearly through all the recommendations that have been made
    41        with regard to smoking and heart disease in particular.
    42        And I would suggest that that is precisely the same
    43        situation so far as heart disease is concerned and diet.
    44
    45        During the war there was a most interesting fall in
    46        mortality from heart disease, despite the alleged stress
    47        under which the British population was supposed to be under
    48        as a consequence of the war.  But heart disease fell
    49        dramatically during the war and rose again shortly
    50        afterwards.
    51
    52        Now, the other evidence, or the other argument I would put
    53        to you is this; that if an individual was eating at
    54        McDonald's regularly, at this source, a case I put further
    55        down which I think is being made probably by McDonald's
    56        themselves, the likelihood is that they have a kind of
    57        perception about the food that they choose to eat or want
    58        to eat and the degree to which that perception has actually
    59        been insinuated and persuaded by the techniques of the
    60        fast-food people, who are naturally wanting to encourage

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