Day 033 - 10 Oct 94 - Page 49
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is remarkably like the introductory
3 passage in Professor Wheelock's first statement.
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5 MR. MORRIS: All right. (To the witness): Then the next point
6 is -- may be the important one -- if you read the next
7 sentence: "Despite all this" -- just to summarise that
8 previous paragraph, it says cancers take a long time to
9 develop?
10 A. Right.
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12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What Professor Wheelock said in one of his
13 statements was that if you have something which is
14 poisonous, the cause and effect may be pretty obvious
15 because you ingest it and immediately you become very ill;
16 whereas you have this problem with cause and effect with
17 diet, that if there is a causative link at all, it is a
18 chronic matter.
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20 It may not be a very elegant summary, but that is,
21 effectively, what he, if my recollection is right, was
22 saying at the beginning of one of his statements. That
23 appears to be what he is saying here.
24 A. Yes.
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26 Q. What question do you want to ask Dr. Barnard?
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28 MR. MORRIS: He says in the next line: "Despite all this, we
29 have now reached a point where I believe it is justifiable
30 to make recommendations to the public".
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32 MR. RAMPTON: Again, my Lord, that is not a matter of dispute
33 in this case at all; it is common ground.
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35 MR. MORRIS: He is referring here to chronic diseases and
36 specifically to cancer prevention. Do you think it is
37 justifiable to make recommendations -----
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39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Rampton put the Grey Book which makes
40 recommendations with approval.
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42 MR. MORRIS: OK.
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44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The question is whether, or one of the
45 questions is whether the recommendations are there,
46 because certainly it is not going to any harm to reduce
47 fat intake and, on the evidence, it might help, or whether
48 there is the positive case which you are batting for
49 or -----
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51 MR. RAMPTON: I do not know whether it would help at this
52 stage; I do not see our task in this case as having to
53 disprove a possible causative effect for diet in relation
54 to cancer. According to whatever meaning your Lordship
55 attaches to the pamphlet, I see it as one of the potential
56 cases which the Defendants have to make, that it is
57 positively a cause of cancer. Those two things are quite
58 different.
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60 I have always accepted (and my witnesses have all
