Day 296 - 07 Nov 96 - Page 13
1 inform their customers of the dangers of eating too much
2 food which is high in fat, sugar, animal products and
3 fault, and low in fibre, vitamins and minerals, we submit
4 that this is no more than to suggest that McDonald's --
5 well, both Plaintiffs, one is a massive UK company with
6 millions of pounds of advertising budget and the other is a
7 huge multi-national with a 1.8 billion dollar a year
8 advertising budget, two companies which are making millions
9 of dollars and pounds out of the hamburger eating
10 community, owe a special duty to that community to alert
11 them to any possible dangers relating to their eating
12 habits.
13
14 In other words, on the verge of the 21st Century the public
15 expects corporations that have almost limitless resources
16 to act responsibly and to err on the side of caution when
17 they are imparting information to their customers.
18
19 Although we say that that is the essence of that paragraph,
20 we do know in fact that McDonald's are aware of the dangers
21 of a high fat low fibre diet and that they do not bother to
22 inform the public. The only document where the dangers are
23 related is a specialist document which was sent round to
24 members of the medical community, profession, although it,
25 I think, could be obtained from head office by the public
26 if they wrote in for it, but it was not available in
27 stores, which is basically where McDonald's customers are
28 going to get their information.
29
30 McDonald's do not bother to inform the public of the
31 dangers; instead they dress up their food as nutritious and
32 a useful part of a balanced diet, which, as I think Jane
33 Brophy, who we called, you remember that she was a National
34 Health Service health promotion adviser to health
35 professionals, and she referred to some of the literature
36 that health professionals are now expected to make
37 available to the public regarding the need for a healthy
38 diet in order to avoid chronic degenerative diseases.
39
40 I should point out that that information being available to
41 the public it is available to McDonald's and they could, in
42 turn, make it available to their customers. She concluded
43 that most people in health education know that a typical
44 McDonald's meal does not comply with current healthy eating
45 recommendations, and that is why McDonald's literature
46 states that the two golden rules for healthy eating are
47 variety and moderation, which she said are vague terms
48 which do not help the average person to choose a health
49 promoting diet.
50
51 A further point is that we submit that the court should
52 consider the impact of the leaflet on ordinary members of
53 the public. They are not going to go running to the doctor
54 nor are they going to abandon longstanding eating habits
55 just because they have read one leaflet about McDonald's
56 food, diet, heart disease and cancer. They are going to
57 consider things in the round, taking on board the parts
58 that fit in with their views on nutrition and rejecting the
59 parts that do not. Just, basically, weighing it up with
60 their own common sense and what is already widely reported
