Day 256 - 04 Jun 96 - Page 40


     
     1        medical structure.  So, we had those data; and it is
     2        impressively good -- much better than I had thought
     3        originally.
     4
     5   Q.   You say better than you had thought; but as good, better
     6        than?
     7        A.  Yes, I would say nearly as good as; in fact, in some
     8        cases, such as liver cancer, stomach cancer, maybe better,
     9        because they are so familiar with those diseases.
    10
    11   Q.   We are not here concerned with either of those cancers,
    12        but, as you know, we are concerned with cancer, if you
    13        like, colorectal cancer and cancer of the breast.  So the
    14        availability of chemotherapy and radiotherapy is as good in
    15        the Peoples Republic of China, and has been for what we
    16        might say 40 years, as in the United States?
    17        A.  Well, I think that is a leading question because, quite
    18        clearly -----
    19
    20   Q.   It is a leading question, yes.
    21        A.  That is leading question, because one makes a
    22        presumption that the use of radiotherapy and chemotherapy
    23        is sort of the golden standard for cancer cure, cancer
    24        control, when in fact the data do not support that.  The
    25        Chinese take a rather different view on some of those
    26        issues.  They use their own sort of procedures; and at this
    27        point in time, when we look at the data we have been using
    28        in the West with regard to that, it is not very pleasing to
    29        see the results.  So I am not sure that we can start out
    30        with that presumption.
    31
    32   Q.   I know you are not a medical man, and I certainly am not,
    33        but you know more about it than I do.  Can I take cancer of
    34        the colon, for example?
    35        A.  Yes.
    36
    37   Q.   It is one of the cancers which, in the Western world at
    38        least, has responded well to the forms of treatment which
    39        are available, including surgery -- comparatively well?
    40        A.  It is somewhat debatable.  One of the -- the principal
    41        debate primarily has to do with the time when the disease
    42        is actually diagnosed.  We get ever better at diagnosing
    43        early disease.  It looks like we are improving the sort of
    44        prognosis when, in fact, all we are doing is just moving
    45        the early diagnosis date up; so then, when we look five
    46        years later, we have not really improved on our ability to
    47        control or cure the disease.
    48
    49   Q.   But, none the worst for that, I dare say, early diagnosis
    50        is as beneficial or perhaps more so than what one might 
    51        call later therapy? 
    52        A.  That is the part that is somewhat debatable, because 
    53        early diagnosis does not necessarily mean a longer life; it
    54        only means we have a longer period to sort of look at the
    55        disease, if you will.
    56
    57   Q.   But am I right or wrong in thinking that as compared with,
    58        for example, stomach cancer, colorectal cancer is more
    59        susceptible of cure -- to use a simple English word -- than
    60        stomach cancer?

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