Day 296 - 07 Nov 96 - Page 08
1 appears on page 35 of the abstract bundles of pleading,
2 that there is a considerable amount of evidence of a
3 relationship between a diet high in fat, sugar and sodium
4 and low in fibre and diseases such as obesity, high blood
5 pressure, heart disease and some forms of cancer.
6
7 This fact is acknowledged in a booklet published by the
8 second Plaintiff in or around 1985 entitled "Good Food,
9 Nutrition and McDonald's", which is not generally available
10 in stores. The same pamphlet acknowledges that dietary
11 fibre is important as it adds bulk to the diet and
12 therefore helps prevent constipation.
13
14 The reference for that particular part is on internal page
15 8 of that pamphlet, "Good Food, Nutrition and McDonald's",
16 which is found either on the Defendants' supplementary list
17 of documents number 8 or pink volume 6, tab 5.
18
19 People can see for themselves that we did not change the
20 meaning, when we pleaded that meaning -- or, sorry, when we
21 pleaded that paragraph as justification, we did not change
22 the meaning of what McDonald's had said in their own
23 booklet. However, instead of McDonald's doing the decent
24 thing and admitting the whole paragraph that we pleaded,
25 since it was entirely from their own book, they made the
26 following limited admission - and this was on 15th December
27 1993 that they made this admission - that there is a
28 considerable amount of evidence of a relationship between a
29 diet high in saturated fat and sodium and obesity, high
30 blood pressure and heart disease.
31
32 And later stating, during their application to amend their
33 Statement of Claim, that it was obvious that when they
34 admitted the relationship in this formal admission it was a
35 causal relationship they were admitting.
36
37 But, nonetheless, they admitted the cancer and diabetes
38 despite the recognition in their own pamphlet, which
39 obviously left those in as an issue, and it is our view
40 that, bearing in mind the similarity between the passage in
41 the fact sheet and McDonald's own pamphlet, it was
42 extremely oppressive of McDonald's to force us to call
43 evidence on the issue of diet and cancer, and in our view
44 it is a complete abuse of the libel laws and the process of
45 the court to force us to do that.
46
47 This position, or this point, was given added weight
48 when -- sorry, I have just lost my notes -- when Robert
49 Beavers, the senior vice president of the first Plaintiff
50 and member of the board of directors of McDonald's
51 Corporation, was challenged with the London Greenpeace fact
52 sheet extract and asked to compare it with the extract from
53 "Good Food, Nutrition and McDonald's", and he replied that
54 he could not spot any difference between the two. That was
55 on day 4, page 90, line 5.
56
57 Then he went on, when he came back to give further
58 evidence, to criticise McDonald's own pamphlet when he
59 mistook it for the London Greenpeace fact sheet. And that
60 was on day 123, page 43, line 45.
