Day 053 - 22 Nov 94 - Page 40


     
     1
     2        "What that means is that we have not admitted, because we
     3        understand it to be controversial, that there is sensible
     4        or convincing evidence of a relationship between a diet
     5        high in fat as a generality in this case, it would have to
     6        be unsaturated fat, etc., etc. and heart disease."
     7
     8        Down to G, Mr. Rampton:
     9
    10        "What is controversial is that there is a considerable
    11        amount of evidence, certainly of convincing evidence, of a
    12        relationship between a diet high in unsaturated fat, total
    13        fat, etc., etc. and heart disease."
    14
    15   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I see how it is arises.  It arises from
    16        the way in which the Defence is worded:  "There is a
    17        considerable amount of evidence of a relationship between a
    18        diet high in fat."  So when we came to make our admission,
    19        what we did was to separate out what we thought to be
    20        uncontroversial, which is the saturated fat element of the
    21        diet, which left the unsaturated fat content as a matter of
    22        controversy.
    23
    24   MS. STEEL:  No.  It left the total fat content as a matter of
    25        controversy.
    26
    27        The point I am trying to make is that the fact that
    28        Mr. Rampton or Mr. Shields make comments in the course of
    29        their arguments and the fact that those comments sometimes
    30        get into judgments should not be taken as meaning that we
    31        knew that those were the issues because, as far as we were
    32        concerned, the Plaintiffs frequently exaggerated and
    33        distorted what the issues were, and we had to go on what
    34        was in the pleadings.
    35
    36        Going on to point 14, which is really following on the same
    37        kind of line, that for every occasion when the Plaintiffs
    38        have referred to "cause", there is at least an equal number
    39        of occasions when they have denied any link or association.
    40          So, at a practical level, as I say, we had to treat the
    41        case as that which was pleaded.
    42
    43        As an example, there is reference to the page that
    44        Mr. Rampton referred to yesterday, where he read out
    45        passage B of page 23 of 21st December of last year.
    46        Following on from that passage, if you look at C on page
    47        23, it says:
    48
    49        "On the Defendants' side, there is a range of what I might
    50        call epidemiological or statistical evidence to assert an 
    51        association between a diet high in saturated fat and low in 
    52        fibre and cancer of the breast and colon, and, on the other 
    53        hand, if you read Dr. Arnott's report and to some extent
    54        Professor Wheelock's report for the Plaintiffs, what one
    55        finds is not only that the conclusion to those
    56        epidemiological studies are attacked, but the methodology
    57        of them."
    58
    59        It appeared to us there that the Plaintiffs were saying
    60        that they were denying that there was any association.

Prev Next Index