Day 023 - 13 Sep 94 - Page 31


     
     1
     2   Q.   I understood you to have told Mr. Morris a moment ago
     3        that, in fact, the state of knowledge now is perhaps less
     4        suspicious of particular dietary substances than it was
     5        then?
     6        A.  Indeed, yes.
     7
     8   Q.   Is that right?
     9        A.  Yes.
    10
    11   Q.   Then under "Fibre.  It now seems that food containing
    12        fibre (roughage) may actually protect against cancer of
    13        the bowel".  Then they recite a summary, I think, of
    14        Dennis Burkett's work; is that right.
    15        A.  Indeed, yes.
    16
    17   Q.   Tell us, please, was that right in 1989?
    18        A.  That is what people believed at that particular time.
    19
    20   Q.   Has the role of fibre as a possible protective agent been
    21        enhanced or discredited to any significant extent since
    22        1989?
    23        A.  The role of fibre has certainly been questioned since
    24        1989.
    25
    26   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have also read the left hand margin, the
    27        bottom column.
    28
    29   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, I was not going to ask  -----
    30
    31   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, just so that everyone knows I have
    32        actually read that.
    33
    34   MR. RAMPTON:   About the vegetarians?
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    37
    38   MR. RAMPTON:  Can you go over the page, Dr. Arnott, the first
    39        complete sentence under the photographs:  "Similarly,
    40        there is much less bowel cancer in rural Finland than in
    41        Copenhagen in Denmark.  Both communities have much the
    42        same eating habits, and both eat a lot of animals fats.
    43        One key difference may be that the Finns also eat a lot of
    44        unrefined rye bread, which has high fibre content.  So
    45        some researchers think the fibre in the Finnish diet may
    46        help to protect them from this form of cancer".  Are we
    47        able to be any less guarded than the authors of this
    48        document nowadays?
    49        A.  I do not think so.
    50 
    51   Q.   Then finally if we go to the back of the document, page 
    52        27, which Mr. Morris was asking you about, this graph or 
    53        diagram is based, it appears at any rate, on some work of
    54        Sir Richard Doll and Dr. Peto.  Dr. Peto was a
    55        statistician, was he not?
    56        A.  He is a statistician in Oxford.
    57
    58   Q.   "Getting prevention in proportion.  We do not know how to
    59        prevented some cancers, largely because we do not know
    60        what causes them.  Some causes, such as smoking, are

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