Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 38


     
     1        I would hope to persuade your Lordship by reference to the
     2        cross-examination of Dr. Arnott in a minute that, in fact,
     3        it would serve no useful purpose whatsoever, since
     4        Defendants put every single question under the sun about
     5        causation which could possibly be put), I would perfectly
     6        willing to recall Dr. Arnott, if it would help.
     7
     8        Your Lordship may remember one thing that Professor
     9        Crawford said, which was a qualification on his evidence;
    10        that whilst in his view the state of knowledge about diet
    11        and cancer was about the same as it had been for diet and
    12        heart in the 1970s or mid 1970s, he did say that he thought
    13        that the cancer people might take a different view.
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    16
    17   MR. RAMPTON:  I do believe that Dr. Arnott has, in fact, already
    18        given a different view because I think I asked him:  Has
    19        the sum of knowledge advanced much in the last few years?
    20        I think he said, no, he did not think it had; in fact, he
    21        thought the picture had got even cloudier than it had been
    22        in the late 1980s.  If it would help -- I say this in
    23        advance of a submission I will eventually make, I hope not
    24        much further on down the road -- that is one means by which
    25        any disadvantage which your Lordship thought the Defendants
    26        might have suffered by this amendment might be cured.
    27        Because there is no question in my mind that there is an
    28        elasticity in this case -- your Lordship may disagree --
    29        which would allow Dr. Arnott to be presented for further
    30        cross-examination, possibly also evidence in-chief,
    31        following the reappearance of Professor Crawford or even,
    32        if your Lordship pleased, in advance of him, I really do
    33        not mind.
    34
    35        My Lord, I pass from Professor Wheelock which shows, as
    36        I submit, two things; your Lordship telling the Defendants
    37        what the issue might actually be and an appreciation by the
    38        Defendants of what the issue actually was.  I pass from
    39        that to Dr. Arnott who gave evidence-in-chief on the next
    40        day, 25th July -- there must have been intervening weekend,
    41         -- which is day 17.
    42
    43        All of this, I remind your Lordship, is before the six week
    44        vacation which shortly followed.  My Lord, I start (and
    45        I am not going to go through the whole of this; I am going
    46        to make a submission which your Lordship will be able to
    47        verify by reference to the transcript in due course) at
    48        page 3, after having asked Dr. Arnott for his professional
    49        history.  At line 22 I asked him this:  "We were going to
    50        come upon it later on.  Tell us what is meant by the word 
    51        'aetiology' in relation to your field of medicine?" 
    52         "Aetiology is basically", this is the answer, "what we 
    53        believe to be the causes of cancer and this can take a
    54        variety of different forms and includes things like genetic
    55        predisposition, biological causes such as viral infections,
    56        possibly chemical induction, and physical causes such as
    57        radiation exposure."  Me:  "We will have to look at this
    58        topic in a good deal more detail later on.  Before we do
    59        that, Dr. Arnott, have you written articles about colon
    60        rectal cancer?"

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