Day 269 - 25 Jun 96 - Page 07
1 there. Are you say that Fritsche and Johnston promote the
2 same hypothesis as you do?
3 A. No, they do not, my Lord, but what they do is they show
4 that a substance, that is alpha-Linolenic acid, which
5 protects against metastasis in their experimental models,
6 that substance happens to be same as was used in a trial by
7 French workers to demonstrate a protective effect against
8 coronary thrombosis, so the two studies go together.
9
10 Q. In the 20 months since you were here last, have you tried
11 your theory out on anyone or found anyone working on it, or
12 is it still a Professor Crawford special, if I can put it
13 that way?
14 A. Well, I have actually lectured on cancer. I lectured
15 quite recently at Whitscross on diet and cancer and I
16 raised the subject and made this hypothesis to the people
17 who were there and they found it interesting. Nobody
18 actually came up and shot me to bits on it, although there
19 were questions, of course, about it. It was discussed in
20 this Washington conference. I do not know if the
21 discussion will come out in the proceedings, but we did
22 have a discussion about this concept, and it does seem
23 attractive.
24
25 Q. I will be quite candid. What troubles me about your thesis
26 here is that if it really did have merit I would have
27 thought researchers all over the world would be on to it
28 like hounds after a fox.
29 A. You may be right, but, with great respect, I mean,
30 that is not necessarily how science works. I mean, I
31 published data in 1972 which said that arachinic and
32 docosahexaenoic acids were important determinants of brain
33 growth and development. It was not really until the late
34 1980's that it was taken up worldwide. So I think there is
35 a time lag between ideas going into the field, so to speak,
36 and them coming out in practice. It happens with varying
37 degrees of -- it depends on what sort of field that you are
38 in, but the great concentration at the moment in biology is
39 down at the molecular biological level and I think that is
40 where the focus of interest is and it may be some time
41 before they might think of looking at this idea of the
42 common denominator.
43
44 Q. Yes. Thank you.
45
46 MS. STEEL: "2.0 Relative risk of the high saturated fat meal:
47 There are two factors to consider.
48 (i) the direct impact of the saturated fat loaded and
49 anti-oxidant poor meal.
50 (ii) the indirect impact of the McDonald's message on the
51 beneficial nature of their food which is likely to impact
52 on behaviour in terms of food choices and kitchen activity.
53 I will return to this point below."
54
55 Can you just clarify that?
56 A. Sorry, which?
57
58 Q. When you say "the beneficial nature of their food", in
59 number 2, can you just --
60 A. I am referring to the message, the public relations
