Day 083 - 06 Feb 95 - Page 07
1 in by the words "at worst poisonous" or as "food
2 poisoning".
3
4 MR. RAMPTON: No, My Lord. "Food poisoning" and "poisonous"
5 must in the context of the leaflet as a whole, "poisonous"
6 must mean food poisonous or capable of causing food
7 poisoning; food poisoning is, we would submit, an ordinary
8 phrase having an ordinary meaning to ordinary people,
9 something as follows: A sudden illness brought on by the
10 consumption of food which is contaminated with pathogenic
11 organisms. I am not saying that the man in the street who
12 read this leaflet would phrase it in that way, but what he
13 thinks of when he thinks of food poisoning, when he sees
14 those words in the leaflet, is, if I may put it bluntly,
15 vomit and diarrhoea caused by food which is "off" or
16 contaminated.
17
18 He does not when he sees the words "food poisoning" think
19 in terms of long-term degenerative illness brought on by
20 the consumption of food over a period of time.
21
22 My Lord, the reason we made no objection to diabetes was
23 really a practical one.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Could you just pause there a moment?
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, sorry.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, diabetes?
30
31 MR. RAMPTON: The reason we made no objection to that was really
32 a practical one. May I put it like this: It seemed to us
33 (and still seems to us, and so we shall urge upon your
34 Lordship at the end of this case) that the sting of the
35 passage about degenerative disease and, indeed, about food
36 poisoning in the context of a leaflet about McDonald's is
37 that it implies at the very least and in the case of two
38 degenerative kinds of diseases, specifically the mention of
39 cancer and heart disease, the accusation is more than
40 implicit, it seemed to us that the leaflet implies that
41 McDonald's had been at the very least reckless in the moral
42 sense with their customers' health.
43
44 I say that for this reason, that, unlike BSE, the risks of
45 food poisoning by contamination with pathogens has been
46 known about for a very long time. The customer reading
47 that leaflet is going to say to himself: "Well, I wonder
48 what steps, if any, McDonald's take to prevent what they
49 must know is a well-recognised risk?" In relation to the
50 other two diseases the words of the pamphlet are quite
51 explicit. I need not ask your Lordship to get it out.
52 There is a specific accusation of concealing the risk of
53 degenerative diseases, despite the fact that that risk is,
54 according to the leaflet, at any rate by 1989 a well-known
55 or well-accepted medical fact.
56
57 My Lord, that does not apply to BSE and more
58 importantly -----
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But that is your second point, is it not,
