Day 254 - 22 May 96 - Page 09
1 grown during the last 2 years.
2
3 Q. So they started around the time when you gave your
4 evidence?
5 A. No.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, that is quite inconsistent. We listened
8 to the evidence before. You know, as well as I do, that
9 Dr. Arnott said the tendency had been for some time growing
10 then. Whether you accept it as evidence or not, that is
11 what he said.
12
13 MS. STEEL: You said that it was beginning to develop at the
14 time when you last gave evidence?
15 A. No, I did not actually say that.
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you have a reference?
18
19 MS. STEEL: Yes. It is on page 8 of ----
20
21 MR. MORRIS: Today, we are talking about today.
22
23 MS. STEEL: Page 7, line 52.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You had better just say what you think if one
26 can pinpoint the beginning of the great scepticism. I have
27 to say it seems to me to be rather difficult because there
28 have always been enthusiasts, and there have always been
29 sceptics, and what we are now talking about is a body of
30 common opinion which has become more sceptical, as
31 I understand it. Is that what you are meaning to put?
32 There have been sceptics right from the start and there
33 have been enthusiasts right from the start, have there not?
34 A. In fairness, as I said this morning, when people first
35 began to relate what appeared to be dietary variations
36 throughout the world, and the variations in the incidence
37 of breast cancer and large bowel cancer, it seemed clear
38 cut that diet or dietary variations could account for
39 perhaps 80 per cent of the differences.
40
41 It is only following that, when people began to try to
42 confirm these variations, that they ran into difficulties
43 and appreciated that the situation was far more complex
44 than had originally believed to be the case.
45
46 MS. STEEL: But that situation, as you said in your statement,
47 was in the 1960s and 1970s which was a long time before you
48 last gave your evidence?
49 A. Indeed, yes, and it is actually since that time that
50 there have been inconsistencies in the reports which have
51 appeared. It is not just that the inconsistencies have
52 appeared this year, last year or the year before. It is
53 that throughout the time people have tried to investigate
54 in more detail what appeared to be a relationship between
55 diet and cancer that inconsistencies appeared. Thus, there
56 have been inconsistencies ever since these studies were
57 first carried out, so you are talking about the 1970s, the
58 1980s.
59
60 What I am saying now is that, as time has gone on and more
