Day 186 - 10 Nov 95 - Page 09
1 McDonald's food?" does not add anything. It is unhealthy
2 because it is high in fat, etcetera, not because one meal
3 would give you cancer or heart disease. It is called
4 unhealthy because health professionals recommend that we
5 avoid or eat less of that type of food, in a similar way
6 that smoking is considered an unhealthy pastime, although
7 one or two cigarettes, or a packet, or even smoking for a
8 year, or something like that, is not necessarily going to
9 give you cancer or heart disease, it is still considered an
10 unhealthy pastime.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes?
13
14 MS. STEEL: Moving on to the headings across the top of the
15 leaflet, "McDollars", "McGreedy", "McCancer", "McMurder",
16 "McDisease", etcetera, I would submit that they do not add
17 anything to the meaning of the text or change it in any
18 way. They are merely designed to catch the eye, to
19 encourage people to read further. I think they are really
20 taking the mickey out of the McDonald's logo as a means of
21 being eye catching and encouraging people to read the rest
22 of the leaflet.
23
24 Even supposing that people did read them as if they were
25 statements of fact -- which, personally, I do not really
26 see how they can -- they would have to look at them and
27 say: "What do they mean? What do the headings
28 'McDollars,' 'McHunger', 'McCancer', 'McTorture' mean on
29 their own?" On their own, they mean absolutely nothing.
30 Therefore, their meaning must be taken from the text. They
31 rely on the text for an explanation of the meaning.
32
33 Take "McHunger". What does that mean? It could be related
34 to Third World hunger or it could be related to the
35 statement in the leaflet: "Why do you feel hungry again so
36 soon after eating a Big Mac?"; or it could be about
37 something else.
38
39 Does "McGarbage" refer to junk food, or is it about waste
40 packaging, or is it a sum-up of what the Company is or what
41 it stands for? If it was about waste packaging, what and
42 how much are they responsible for?
43
44 There is no quantity in the headings; there is no
45 explanation about what they mean. They do not mean
46 anything on their own. To get the quantity, to get the
47 meaning, you have to read the text. Similarly, if you had
48 "McCancer" on its own somewhere, apart from this leaflet,
49 just a piece of paper saying "McCancer", the Plaintiffs say
50 that that means their food and you get cancer. We have
51 said that it could mean that McDonald's are a cancer on
52 society, or that it could mean that you could get cancer
53 from dioxins through the packaging process or through CFCs
54 destroying the ozone layer. It is basically meaningless on
55 its own, because there are so many possibilities.
56
57 If "McCancer" means that if you eat McDonald's food you
58 will get cancer, as the Plaintiffs propose, does
59 "McDollars" mean that if you eat McDonald's food you will
60 get dollars?
