Day 033 - 10 Oct 94 - Page 47
1 which I would be glad to produce if you wish, contained
2 comments of physicians trying to figure out which of their
3 patients actually need to stop smoking and which may
4 continue to smoke cigarettes. One such editorial
5 concluded that as long as the patient has not developed a
6 chronic cough -----
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think you need develop this because
9 I can remember perfectly well that there was sceptics
10 about cigarette smoking and cancer. But you are working
11 on the basis that things are going to go the same way so
12 far as diet and cancer and diabetes are concerned, are
13 you?
14 A. Well, I believe that has already happened, in, I would
15 say, perhaps back in 1982 when the National Research
16 Council issued its report, which we have alluded to, Diet,
17 Nutrition and Cancer, the green book, that was -----
18
19 MR. MORRIS: I have one here; is that the National Academy of
20 Sciences?
21 A. Yes, that is right.
22
23 Q. Committee on Diet, Nutrition and Cancer.
24 A. Yes, that is right.
25
26 Q. The National Research Council; it has various different
27 names for some reason.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have to say I am more concerned with what
30 the evidence established, if anything, in the late 80s and
31 now, insofar as it is relevant, rather than, I think,
32 probably a comparison with cigarette smoking and lung
33 cancer because, if the truth is that the evidence is less
34 complete in relation to cancer than it is to lung, than it
35 is to smoking or, rather, diet and cancer, than it is
36 between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, I have probably
37 got to put the latter factors on one side, have
38 I not? Have I not got to focus in on dietary factors and
39 the various cancers which have been mentioned?
40 A. I wonder if there might be one brief point I might
41 make, just to draw that to a close? To this day when
42 animals inhale cigarette smoke, they do not develop lung
43 cancer as human beings do. Moreover, the mechanisms have
44 never been clearly sustained. So, there are many, many
45 holes in the links between tobacco and lung cancer, and
46 yet the preponderance of evidence has been sufficient that
47 the sceptics are a small minority.
48
49 Finished with that and talking only about diet, the animal
50 studies say with dietary factors, particularly fat and
51 breast cancer, are far more compelling than they are with
52 inhaled tobacco, and all the other lines of evidence that
53 we have talked about today have led to the point where
54 certainly somewhere by the mid-1980s the great majority of
55 American researchers were convinced that there were links,
56 that the links were of a causal nature, so much so that
57 recommendations should be made for the American public
58 specifically to reduce fat intake, but also to change
59 their diet in various other ways as well.
60
