Day 030 - 03 Oct 94 - Page 67


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I wanted to know whether it started then or
     3        it was before then.
     4
     5   THE WITNESS:  Indeed.
     6
     7   MR. RAMPTON:  Can I come back to the flat earth proposition,
     8        Mr. Cannon?  It was widely held at one time, we can agree
     9        perhaps, that the world was flat, was it not?
    10        A.  Yes.
    11
    12   Q.   Certain people were persecuted for holding that maybe that
    13        view was wrong?
    14        A.  Yes.
    15
    16   Q.   It turned out that the people who were persecuted were
    17        right, did it not?
    18        A.  You mean Gallileo, for example, was right?
    19
    20   Q.   Yes.
    21        A.  Indeed so.
    22
    23   Q.   The world is not flat, is it?
    24        A.  It is generally agreed that the world is round, indeed
    25        so, yes.
    26
    27   Q.   It was proposed for a very long time on the basis of the
    28        study originally conducted by Sir Richard Doll (as he now
    29        is) and Dr. Peto based on the review of the habits of a
    30        sample of British doctors that smoking cigarettes was a
    31        cause of lung cancer, was it not?
    32        A.  Yes, but if I can expand on the answer -- that
    33        conclusion was not based on that study.  The point of that
    34        study was that partly because of Doll's own eminence and
    35        partly because of the nature of the study, it was regarded
    36        as the point when the evidence which was massive already
    37        was conclusive, because it was a so-called intervention
    38        trial which was reliably undertaken and well designed.
    39
    40   Q.   So far as smoking cigarettes as a habit and not one
    41        cigarette as you rightly pointed out this morning, smoking
    42        cigarettes as a habit and the incidence of lung cancer is
    43        concerned, nobody has since disputed that the earth is
    44        flat, have they?  That is an accepted proposition, is it
    45        not?
    46        A.  Could you rephrase the question?
    47
    48   Q.   Sorry, it was badly phrased.  Everybody of any respectable
    49        scientific reputation accepts that cigarette smoking as a
    50        habit is a cause of lung cancer? 
    51        A.  Well, further I would say far and away the predominant 
    52        cause of lung cancer, and that view would be held, I would 
    53        dare say, for all practical purposes universally apart
    54        from medically qualified people employed by the tobacco
    55        industry, yes.
    56
    57   Q.   Virtually every respectable medical man would now accept,
    58        perhaps you would agree, that there is a causal
    59        relationship -- I stress the word "causal" -- between a
    60        diet high in fat and, particularly, saturated fat and the

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