Day 039 - 20 Oct 94 - Page 65
1 nominated me as a member of JECFA, you will have to ask
2 them.
3
4 Q. I did not ask whether they should nominate you. I wanted
5 to know why you thought it was that, apparently, they do
6 not pay attention to what you say. I can assume you have
7 said it often enough and loud enough.
8 A. Clearly they and I are operating with a different set
9 of assumptions. They are the kinds of assumptions
10 I endeavoured to spell out in answers to questions
11 yesterday.
12
13 Q. Do you know Professor Ronald Walker?
14 A. I do, indeed.
15
16 Q. He is a distinguished scientist in his field?
17 A. Yes, he is.
18
19 Q. He is and has been a member of JECFA and of the SCF and of
20 the COT, has he not?
21 A. Yes, he has.
22
23 Q. Do you say that he is in some sense compromised in his
24 judgment by a connection with industry?
25 A. I am not saying, and I have not said, that because from
26 time to time he has worked as a consultant for particular
27 companies that that has coloured his judgment. On the
28 other hand, I have come to the conclusion that the kinds of
29 people who are chosen to be recipients of government
30 funding -- sorry, of industrial funding, and have chosen to
31 be invited to be members of government committees and
32 committees such as the Scientific Committee for Food or
33 JECFA, have been chosen because of the kinds of things they
34 say and, therefore, there is a coupling there, but the
35 direction of causation is working in the opposite sense
36 from that which you tried to suggest.
37
38 Q. There is another possibility, is there not? I preface it
39 with this question: Do you agree that there are on these
40 various committees or acting as advisers to these various
41 committees a large number of scientists every bit as
42 distinguished as Professor Walker from all over the Western
43 world?
44 A. Well, some of them are perhaps a little more
45 distinguished than Professor Walker, and others are perhaps
46 a little less distinguished.
47
48 Q. Do not let us mince words. They are served by a body of
49 very distinguished scientific opinion?
50 A. They are distinguished, but that they are distinguished
51 does not make them ipso facto correct and I do not feel
52 compelled to assent to their judgments by virtue of their
53 being distinguished.
54
55 Q. That leads to this, does it not, Dr. Millstone: If they do
56 not take on board and give effect to what I might call the
57 Millstone thesis of food additive safety, there are only
58 three possible explanations, are there not? One, is that
59 these distinguished gentlemen are all stupid; another is
60 they do not listen to what you say and the other is, if you
