Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 32
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I appreciate what he said precisely about
2 when that had come to mind, but he was putting
3 cardiovascular disease -- is it wrong to suggest that he
4 was putting cardiovascular disease and cancer in the same
5 basket, as it were?
6
7 MR. RAMPTON: No, it is wrong to suggest that. What he said
8 was, I think, that the knowledge about the relationship
9 between cancer and diet is at about the same stage now as
10 -----
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, that is what I meant, but that he was
13 propounding a possible common mechanism causally related to
14 a diet high in fat etc..
15
16 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, that is right, and in relation to promotion
17 only, I think.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, the mechanism having partly a common
20 route.
21
22 MR. RAMPTON: And his conviction that there was or might be such
23 association was derived, I think he said, in large part
24 from two factors; (1) the striking nature of the population
25 studies and (2) some of the animal experiments.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
28
29 MR. RAMPTON: I think that is a fair summary. My Lord, in this
30 particular context, he is not so important because, as
31 I say, he does not address what I call the primary question
32 which is the question to which this amendment is directed
33 and which the evidence of Dr. Barnard, Professor Wheelock,
34 Dr. Arnott and Professor Keen was directed, which is
35 whether McDonald's products can be held responsible for
36 causing these diseases in the people that eat them.
37 Dr. Barnard seems to have felt they were; the others did
38 not -- whether they could, I should say, the others did
39 not.
40
41 Passing from there, the next step would be to invite your
42 Lordship's's attention to what we would say was more or
43 less the end of the road, which is when you get to trial
44 and you find not only -- I am only going to use Dr. Arnott
45 as an example -- as clearly as could be that the Plaintiffs
46 have approached the matter consistently in the same way
47 since July of last year, but the Defendants have known
48 perfectly well all along what the issue was. That emerges
49 as clearly as anything from the cross-examination of
50 Dr. Arnott which, your Lordship will remember, was
51 separated by a period of six weeks from his examination
52 in-chief.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Shall we pause there?
55
56 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, yes.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will say five past two, to give you a few
59 extra minutes. I have actually flagged the paragraphs in
60 those books. If you can set in hand efforts to photocopy
