Day 053 - 22 Nov 94 - Page 40
1
2 "What that means is that we have not admitted, because we
3 understand it to be controversial, that there is sensible
4 or convincing evidence of a relationship between a diet
5 high in fat as a generality in this case, it would have to
6 be unsaturated fat, etc., etc. and heart disease."
7
8 Down to G, Mr. Rampton:
9
10 "What is controversial is that there is a considerable
11 amount of evidence, certainly of convincing evidence, of a
12 relationship between a diet high in unsaturated fat, total
13 fat, etc., etc. and heart disease."
14
15 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I see how it is arises. It arises from
16 the way in which the Defence is worded: "There is a
17 considerable amount of evidence of a relationship between a
18 diet high in fat." So when we came to make our admission,
19 what we did was to separate out what we thought to be
20 uncontroversial, which is the saturated fat element of the
21 diet, which left the unsaturated fat content as a matter of
22 controversy.
23
24 MS. STEEL: No. It left the total fat content as a matter of
25 controversy.
26
27 The point I am trying to make is that the fact that
28 Mr. Rampton or Mr. Shields make comments in the course of
29 their arguments and the fact that those comments sometimes
30 get into judgments should not be taken as meaning that we
31 knew that those were the issues because, as far as we were
32 concerned, the Plaintiffs frequently exaggerated and
33 distorted what the issues were, and we had to go on what
34 was in the pleadings.
35
36 Going on to point 14, which is really following on the same
37 kind of line, that for every occasion when the Plaintiffs
38 have referred to "cause", there is at least an equal number
39 of occasions when they have denied any link or association.
40 So, at a practical level, as I say, we had to treat the
41 case as that which was pleaded.
42
43 As an example, there is reference to the page that
44 Mr. Rampton referred to yesterday, where he read out
45 passage B of page 23 of 21st December of last year.
46 Following on from that passage, if you look at C on page
47 23, it says:
48
49 "On the Defendants' side, there is a range of what I might
50 call epidemiological or statistical evidence to assert an
51 association between a diet high in saturated fat and low in
52 fibre and cancer of the breast and colon, and, on the other
53 hand, if you read Dr. Arnott's report and to some extent
54 Professor Wheelock's report for the Plaintiffs, what one
55 finds is not only that the conclusion to those
56 epidemiological studies are attacked, but the methodology
57 of them."
58
59 It appeared to us there that the Plaintiffs were saying
60 that they were denying that there was any association.
