Day 030 - 03 Oct 94 - Page 66
1 a place like this. I think it is a good analogy. It is
2 often said that the COMA committee which is the official
3 committee in this country in this context has a judicial
4 function. So what they are concerned to do is to look at
5 the evidence and in the case of more complex reports,
6 actually themselves review the evidence which is going
7 back to scientific bedrock, as I said, and then on that
8 take a view.
9
10 Q. So when you do your work, if I have understood it
11 correctly, you will correct me if I am wrong, what you
12 look at is what the various committees say about the
13 scientific literature which they have reviewed?
14 A. That is exactly right, yes.
15
16 Q. You yourself do not review the scientific literature
17 itself?
18 A. The cancer division of the World Cancer Research Fund
19 does do that, but we do not do it ourselves. Something
20 that has not been referred to this morning is that the
21 World Cancer Research Fund itself has a committee
22 re-reviewing the literature on diet and cancer, as happens
23 from time to time. It is the job of those scientists with
24 their scientific assistants to review the literature and
25 to assess it. What we do is to facilitate that process.
26
27 Q. May I put something to you which you may think is rather a
28 cheek but may illustrate what I am driving at. I expect
29 it is common ground between us, Mr. Cannon, there was a
30 time when it was the official view of, at any rate, some
31 people in the world that the world was flat. Do you
32 remember that?
33 A. I was not there myself -- I have heard it said, yes.
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have no knowledge of you, Mr. Cannon,
36 which will in any way affect any decision I have to make
37 in this case, but I do know you used to write articles in
38 the early or middle 80s in a particular sporting
39 magazine. Did you have an interest in diet before that?
40 A. You were a subscriber to Running magazine?
41
42 Q. I will not say I subscribed or not, but did you have an
43 interest in dietary matters before then or was that the
44 beginning of it?
45 A. Yes, indeed, I did. Shall I give you a little of my
46 history?
47
48 MR. RAMPTON: No.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Not if the answer is "yes".
51
52 MR. RAMPTON: The answer is, yes?
53 A. I took a professional interest in issues to do with
54 nutrition and health and good health, exercise and so
55 forth in the late 1970s.
56
57 Q. So far as I am concerned, Mr. Cannon, the fact that you
58 once wrote for a magazine to which his Lordship might or
59 might or not have once subscribed affects your credibility
60 as a witness not one whit.
