Day 269 - 25 Jun 96 - Page 44
1 about the interpretation of the evidence.
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I will not go to the Scottish paper now,
4 if I do at all, because it is not actually my function to
5 help you I am afraid.
6
7 MS. STEEL: Before we leave, can I just say I think that is
8 second occasion when Mr. Rampton has said that the
9 considerations presented in paragraph 3.8 is with reference
10 to heart disease.
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: Is that wrong?
13
14 MS. STEEL: Yes. Heart disease is not actually mentioned in
15 paragraph 3.8 at all, as far as I can see. It is just
16 general details about dietary reference values of fat.
17
18 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, would that be a convenient moment?
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Just let me look at that. Well, I
21 understood 3.8 to be dietary reference values for fat.
22
23 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, it is.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Then I wrote in at some stage in passing in
26 pencil, "having considered the range of possible
27 conditions." By which I meant diseases to which it might
28 be related.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: No, my Lord. The reason, as it turned out for
31 once in my life I am right, the reason I was specific about
32 it is that it specifically mentioned 3.4.18, which is the
33 recommendations in relation to cardiovascular disease.
34
35 MS. STEEL: Yes. But 3.8 is not specifically about heart
36 disease.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But then 3.5.6 is the one in relation to
39 cancer.
40
41 MR. RAMPTON: Exactly. But what 3.5.6 is saying is that, for
42 other reasons as I interpret it, there are grounds for the
43 recommendation but not in relation to cancer itself. The
44 principal other reason, if one looks at 3.8, is what is
45 said in 3.4.18 which is the recommendation relating to
46 prevention of cardiovascular disease?
47 A. My Lord, I wonder if could comment on this?
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes?
50 A. It is sometime since I read that report when it came
51 out a few years ago and I want remember being unhappy about
52 its conclusions before. I seem to recollect that on
53 previous occasions when, for example, the Royal College of
54 Physicians produced their report on diet and heart disease,
55 that the COMA committee, the same government committee,
56 produced a similar kind of report on diet and heart
57 disease. But their report was very much clouded at that
58 time, in the same kind of careful comments, that they did
59 not want to commit themselves.
60
