Day 294 - 05 Nov 96 - Page 23


     
     1        being attracted to McDonald's because of this kind of
     2        experience.  Even the food is reduced to a status of a
     3        prop.  That is in the previous sentence in the first
     4        paragraph of the "toy food"  section.  And that covers up
     5        the inadequacies of the food, because children as young as
     6        two are -----
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Do not forget we are on food poisoning.
     9
    10   MR. MORRIS:   Yes, but the point is that children, for example,
    11        have no concept of -- and they should be learning as they
    12        are going along about the concept of nutrition.
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think you have got away from the food
    15        poisoning at the moment.
    16
    17   MR. MORRIS:   It is just in that section where it says "at worst
    18        poisonous", it says ----
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:    I know that, but we are essentially on food
    21        poisoning.
    22
    23   MR. MORRIS:   The point that we are making is that it will not
    24        stop children wanting to go to McDonald's and pestering
    25        their parents ----
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have your point.  You say they make it so
    28        attractive in other ways that even if there is a real risk
    29        of food poisoning they still come.
    30
    31   MS. STEEL:   I think it is not just that.  I think the point is
    32        that in the vast majority of cases people are not going to
    33        know, nobody is going to hear that McDonald's were the
    34        cause of somebody getting food poisoning, because it only
    35        hits the headlines if it is a really big incident which
    36        only happens, you know, once every ----
    37
    38   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   I appreciate that is your point.  I really
    39        wonder when one knows groups of young people go round and
    40        go there regularly, if -- it seems to me, from my knowledge
    41        of these things, such as it is, that word goes round very
    42        quickly if they find in a large group of people in their
    43        school who actually go to McDonald's quite regularly that
    44        some of them seem to get a bit poorly within a few hours or
    45        a day or two by coincidence after their weekly or
    46        fortnightly or once a month visit to McDonald's.  But you
    47        say "no".
    48
    49   MS. STEEL:   Well, they might do and they might stop going there
    50        for a couple of weeks and they go somewhere else and then
    51        some other friends have the same incident at Burger King
    52        and so they go back to it.  People have got short memories,
    53        they just forget about it after a while.
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   There we are.
    56
    57   MR. MORRIS:   Anyway, the point we would say is it is a reality,
    58        it is a line from McDonald's that of course it could not
    59        happen because we would lose customers, that is just a
    60        line.  We are talking about the reality of the situation of

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