Day 296 - 07 Nov 96 - Page 28
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2 MR. MORRIS: He did not know of any documents which the company
3 currently produced which explicitly states the links
4 between the diet and disease. Then he was asked, because
5 this is all in the context of health of the nation, that
6 kind of stuff, at the top of page 56 why they did not put
7 the government recommended guidelines for fat in the diet,
8 and they said they did not have it in any McDonald's
9 leaflet.
10
11 "Is there a reason for that?" Answer, "No, we are under
12 no obligation to the government. The guidelines are target
13 guidelines for the population, they are not legislation."
14 Then he is asked, "Do you support the health of the nation
15 initiative?" Answer, "Yes." Question, "The dietary
16 recommendations?" Answer, "Yes." Question, "You say that
17 the company want to support that and help the nation's
18 diet. Would that be right?" Answer, "I think we have said
19 that we want to serve more nutritious food."
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21 That is all part of this, they want to serve more
22 nutritious food because their food is less nutritious than
23 it should be.
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25 So, the point was... Well, it was because we are not going
26 to be flagging up the references for most of McDonald's
27 witnesses apart from the ones that dealt with the links
28 between diet and disease specifically. We wanted to bring
29 in Mr. Oakley as a company representative, and that only
30 illustrates the company's kind of confusion on this issue.
31
32 Just to go back to this 1985 document, I wanted to point
33 out that the context of this leaflet, of that section of
34 the pamphlet, was right next to a heading "eating at
35 McDonald's" with a picture of McDonald's food.
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37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is the one on the left?
38
39 MR. MORRIS: The left is the section about, "there is a
40 considerable body of evidence to suggest".
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42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Which page is that again?
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44 MR. MORRIS: Pages 12 and 13. So, in the context of that
45 pamphlet -----
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47 MR JUSTICE BELL: Read out the words in the box on page 12.
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49 MR. MORRIS: "What else is needed for a healthy diet"?
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51 MR JUSTICE BELL: Then the one on page 13 is, "eating -----"
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53 MR. MORRIS: "Eating at McDonald's." So the point I am going
54 to say, in terms of the context of that advice, or warning,
55 about links between diet and heart disease and cancer and
56 the causal relationship between the two, the very next
57 thing a person would read -- and this is the leaflet that
58 was available to the public -- is about eating at
59 McDonald's, and the point I want to say, the context is
60 clearly the person reading that would assume that there is
