Day 053 - 22 Nov 94 - Page 21


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, Mr. Crawford, on the second page.  When
     3        he got to his second statement, he concluded it, after the
     4        argument about a common denominator, by saying on
     5        page 10:  "If you accept the link between heart disease,
     6        high fat diets and particularly high saturated fat diets"
     7         -- and, obviously, from what I just read out, that was a
     8        close and causal link, apart from anything else -- "then it
     9        is difficult to escape the conclusion that a similar link
    10        exists between cancer and foods rich in fat, particularly
    11        saturated fats and N-3 fatty acids, particularly DHA and
    12        the appropriate antioxidants."
    13
    14        Then he has a further paragraph.  Then, in addition to
    15        that, you have adduced evidence -- whether of your own
    16        initiative or by cross-examination -- which is designed to
    17        point to the fact, as you have, that a number of people eat
    18        quite enough McDonald's food for it to affect their diet by
    19        making it high in fat and saturated fat -- Grazing in
    20        Peckham, certain other surveys, the cross-examinations and
    21        calculations about how difficult or otherwise it is to keep
    22        your diet within governmental recommendations if you eat so
    23        many McDonald's meals a week, and so on.
    24
    25        So I hope I can be forgiven for thinking that, whether or
    26        not you would be content with less at the end of the day,
    27        you were seeking to establish, however directly or
    28        indirectly, a causal link between eating McDonald's food,
    29        which means eating McDonald's meals, and these adverse
    30        matters -- maybe just by contribution to the diet, but a
    31        causal link, nevertheless.
    32
    33   MS. STEEL:  With respect, no.  I mean, I know for a fact that we
    34        asked our witnesses about the links between diet and heart
    35        disease and cancer.  We did not ask them specifically
    36        about "cause".  Some of them have mentioned "cause"
    37        because, presumably, that was one type of link which they
    38        considered was relevant.
    39
    40        But we would have approached the whole area in an entirely
    41        different way had the pleadings read "caused".  We would
    42        not have bothered with all the stuff about statistical
    43        associations, and things like that.  We would have just
    44        focused our whole attention on "cause".  So there would
    45        have been a great deal more evidence in relation
    46        to "cause"; and in terms of cross-examining witnesses --
    47        and, I think, in particular, Mr. Wheelock -- we would have
    48        gone into a great deal more questions about what he meant
    49        by "linked" and things like that, if we had realised that
    50        it was only a causal link that mattered.  As far as we were 
    51        concerned, when he agreed to ----- 
    52 
    53   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Forget "only a causal link that mattered";
    54        are you saying that you did not even appreciate that the
    55        question of a causal link might matter?
    56
    57   MS. STEEL:   Not in itself, no, only in terms of that if we did
    58        show a causal link, that was one type of link, so that
    59        would help us or that you would win the case, but not in
    60        terms of we had to show a causal link.

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