Day 297 - 08 Nov 96 - Page 21
1 evidence, if I feel able to accept it as expert evidence.
2
3 MR. MORRIS: We would certainly say that as far as his
4 understanding of the knowledge of current medical opinion
5 on the subject he was a far greater expert than, say, Dr.
6 Arnott, who had a very specific specialisation.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You may want to say something about it or
9 not. The difficulty I have with Mr. Cannon is however well
10 acquainted he may be with these topics, whether he is
11 actually, at the end of the day, in any better position
12 than I am myself to evaluate the primary evidence.
13
14 MR. MORRIS: Yes, but his evidence is to... If Mr. Rampton
15 stops heckling me?
16
17 MR. RAMPTON: Sorry.
18
19 MR. MORRIS: His expertise is clearly with evaluating the state
20 of medical opinion in the world.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You must, I am afraid, read again my finding
23 as to what this means.
24
25 MR. MORRIS: I understand that. Part of the meaning of what
26 you have said is that McDonald's should know the state of
27 medical opinion linked between diet and cancer, but they do
28 not, or they do not tell their customers that. The point
29 is that one of the reasons that McDonald's should know
30 this, apart from the fact it is in their own pamphlet, is
31 that the state of medical opinion is a consensus.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I can see that for myself. As well as
34 Mr. Cannon is. I am not getting cross about it. It is a
35 serious question, because judges do not take account of
36 what they are told... Well, this is putting it too
37 generally, but basically I tried to explain this, if the
38 judge is in as good a position as the person in the witness
39 box to evaluate the material he has to follow his own
40 judgment rather than the person in the witness box. There
41 are some people who he cannot be in as good a position as
42 because they have had the particular scientific training,
43 or something of that kind.
44
45 What troubles me is if, basically, I could be in as good a
46 position as Mr. Cannon if I read what was relevant to the
47 issue, how can I just follow his view rather than my own?
48 That is trying to put it in ordinary lay language. None of
49 this is a personal criticism of Mr. Cannon. He may be a
50 great powerful good in the land with the work he has done,
51 but it is a difficulty with what the status of his evidence
52 is.
53
54 MR. MORRIS: I think that his job, his position, as scientific
55 director of the World Cancer Research Fund is to evaluate
56 the current state of medical opinion on the links between
57 diet and cancer and presumably other influences on cancer,
58 and I can't see there would be any person in this country
59 more able to give evidence on that matter in the witness
60 box in this case.
