Day 037 - 14 Oct 94 - Page 57


     
     1        the New England Journal of Medicine.  It is at the top of
     2        page 161, footnote 91.  Is that right?
     3        A.  Yes, I am with you, yes.
     4
     5   Q.   You write in the book on page 124:  "Over 88,000 women
     6        aged between thirty-four and fifty-nine were recruited for
     7        the study (none of them had a history of cancer or bowel
     8        disease).  Their health was tracked for six years, and it
     9        was found that women who ate beef, pork, or lamb as a main
    10        dish every day were two-and-a-half times more likely to
    11        contract colon cancer when compared to those who ate meat
    12        less than once a month.  What this study clearly
    13        demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt was this - meat in
    14        itself was a major risk factor.  It wasn't that the
    15        meat-eaters were deficient in other nutrients - fibre, for
    16        example.  The more meat they ate, the greater the risk.
    17
    18        The leader of the team of scientists commented:  'Reducing
    19        red meat consumption is likely to reduce the risk.  There
    20        is no cut-off point so, really, less is better.  All by
    21        itself, this study well and truly puts paid to the myth
    22        that 'meat is part of a healthy diet'. "  You do not give
    23        a reference for that particular quote, "meat is part of a
    24        healthy diet", but it may not matter, Mr. Cox.
    25
    26        Can you turn then, please, now back a page to 123 where we
    27        see the black capital letters "Meat and Breast Cancer".
    28        You write:  "More and more evidence was starting to
    29        accumulate.  In Alberta, Canada, researchers compared the
    30        diets of women with breast cancer to a control group
    31        without the disease.  Was there any food, or types of
    32        foods, which might be linked to the development of breast
    33        cancer?  Indeed there was.  The results were, in the
    34        scientists own words, 'consistent with the notion that
    35        breast cancer risk is affected by certain dietary
    36        patterns, especially those related to the consumption of
    37        beef and pork.  In fact", this is you now, not the authors
    38        of the report, "the strongest association of all was with
    39        pork consumption - chart 7 illustrates how the relative
    40        risk of breast cancer rose with the frequency of pork
    41        eating.  For beef, anything more than consumption on one
    42        day a week was also associated with an increase in
    43        relative risk of breast cancer.  Yet more disturbing
    44        evidence that a meat-dominated diet might indeed be a real
    45        health risk".
    46
    47        Then you cite in the next column a study in Hawaii which
    48        is probably one we have already looked at, and you say:
    49        "Significant associations were established between:
    50        Breast cancer and all forms of fat and animal protein; 
    51        cancer of the uterus and all forms of fat and animal 
    52        protein; prostate cancer and fat and animal protein.  The 
    53        positive correlations between various forms of food and
    54        breast cancer are shown in the next chart".  Mr. Cox,
    55        unless you want me to, I will not read on.
    56
    57        My question is this, when you wrote those two sections,
    58        one on breast cancer and one on colon cancer, had you read
    59        the paper by Dr. Willett from 1990?
    60        A.  Which paper do you mean?

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