Day 036 - 13 Oct 94 - Page 16
1 A. I understand.
2
3 MR. MORRIS: We certainly disagree with that characterisation
4 of what this case is about.
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: He is merely asking him to assume it for the
7 purpose of the question.
8
9 MR. RAMPTON: My purpose, Dr. Barnard, so that you should
10 understand -- I hope you do -- is to establish merely this
11 proposition, that it might not have been fair nor accurate
12 in 1989 or even today to state as a fact that diet causes
13 cancer. That is all.
14 A. Thank you.
15
16 Q. To which end one must, must one not, pay attention to the
17 results of these prospective studies; one must, must one
18 not? One must not discard the prospective studies or the
19 case-control studies or the epidemiologic studies?
20 A. One should consider them, but any sort of data that
21 are elaborated from studies have to be interpreted quite
22 carefully, and one simply does not add up those that have
23 found associations and those that have not and simply
24 weigh them on a scale; one could be misled in so doing.
25
26 Q. I entirely agree with you, Dr. Barnard. One has to look
27 at the strengths and weaknesses not only of particular
28 types of studies but of particular studies themselves, has
29 one not?
30 A. Yes, certainly.
31
32 Q. It is not, as you rightly say, a question of just throwing
33 numbers of studies into one side of the scale and numbers
34 into the other and see what you come out with. Can I ask
35 you to turn on to tab 24?
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think the reference to adjustments for
38 accepted risks, if one looks at page 502 of our bundle
39 467, they are the socioeconomic class, the obesity --
40 I have used, perhaps, the less evident word "fatness" --
41 over age at menopause, family history of breast cancer and
42 over age at menarche. So, I do not think there is
43 anything which surprises -----
44
45 MR. RAMPTON: That is what I took it to mean. Can you turn to
46 tab 24?
47 A. Can you let me know where that was on the page?
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you look under "Results" -- you can get
50 it from table 1 -- but if you look under "Results",
51 socioeconomic?
52 A. I see.
53
54 Q. Upper quartile of fatness, over age at menopause, family
55 history of breast cancer, over age at menarche. They all
56 show positive, as was no doubt expected, and allowance for
57 that was made in pursuing their investigation.
58
59 MR. RAMPTON: That is what all the professional epidemiologists
60 do, is it not? They realise their figures may be
