Day 030 - 03 Oct 94 - Page 33


     
     1
     2   Q.   There is no need to read it out unless Mr. Morris or
     3        Ms. Steel want you to, because I can read it in your
     4        statement.
     5        A.  Then I would say, because I would wish to make a
     6        statement on this, the statement complained of, the
     7        statement made by London Greenpeace, seems to me actually
     8        rather carefully phrased.  What that statement says is
     9        that a diet high in fat, sugar, animal product and salt
    10        (sodium) and low in fibre, then you interpolate of course
    11        in this context, "which describes a typical McDonald's
    12        meal, is linked with cancers of the breast and bowel and
    13        heart disease.  This is accepted medical fact".
    14
    15        I would only wish to comment on the last sentence.  I
    16        would not have phrased it like that, but if instead it had
    17        said:  "This is generally accepted as true among the
    18        medical and scientific profession", which I think comes to
    19        the same thing, then I would accept that.
    20
    21   MR. MORRIS:  When you say -----
    22        A.  The other point I would make, which may be relevant to
    23        this case, is what the currency of this statement is,
    24        because when consensus develops on any matter of public
    25        interest -- here we are talking, of course, about
    26        nutrition and public health -- it develops over a period
    27        of time.  If London Greenpeace had issued that statement
    28        in 1750 or even in 1950, I could not have agreed with it.
    29
    30   Q.   Just on that last point about accepted medical fact; you
    31        said earlier that as from 1982 the consensus had clearly
    32        emerged?
    33        A.  No.  I am saying that the view of the National Academy
    34        of Sciences, which then very rapidly was taken up by the
    35        relevant cancer charities in the States that set the
    36        agenda on these issues (the National Cancer Institute, the
    37        American Cancer Society), that was a consensual view in
    38        the States by the mid-80s and accepted by government in
    39        the States in 1988; different countries move at different
    40        speeds.
    41
    42   Q.   When you said that the quote was "carefully phrased", the
    43        word "linked" is actually not as strong as "causes"?
    44        A.  That is what I mean; London Greenpeace could have been
    45        more lurid.
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You have really gone into the area which
    48        I have to decide.  Put simply what it means.
    49
    50   MR. MORRIS:  Specifically with that statement, would you concur 
    51        with that statement as a whole? 
    52        A.  Yes, and I think it would have been clearer if the 
    53        term "causally linked" had been used as well because, of
    54        course, "linked" by itself can just suggest association
    55        without any causal link.  The clear implication of that
    56        passage to me, if I may, is that the link is causal.  I am
    57        assuming that is what was meant.
    58
    59        Again, perhaps I should elaborate that a little.  Using
    60        the term "causal", I again, my own interpretation of the

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