Day 053 - 22 Nov 94 - Page 06
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You say -- this is why I corrected myself
2 yesterday -- that where you have an association between, at
3 the bottom of page 2 and the top of page 3 of tab 3, that
4 is really taken from papers like Doll and Peto.
5
6 MS. STEEL: Yes. I think the pleadings actually refer to that
7 anyway.
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They do. The phrase "an association between"
10 is used twice in the paragraph of your pleading which
11 refers to Doll and Peto, and Draser & Irving 1972 and
12 Kolonel & Others 1981.
13
14 MS. STEEL: When we amended the pleading, we added the
15 passage:
16
17 "There is a considerable amount of evidence of a
18 relationship between a diet high in fat, sugar and sodium
19 and low in fibre, and diseases such as obesity, high blood
20 pressure, heart disease and some forms of cancer."
21
22 As referred to directly underneath that, that was taken
23 from the Plaintiffs' own booklet, and the word used in the
24 Plaintiffs' own booklet was "relationship" or "related", or
25 something -- "related to".
26
27 Given that it was from their booklet, we did find it
28 strange, and we were perplexed by the fact that they only
29 admitted the heart disease, high blood pressure and
30 obesity, and left out the cancer or some forms of cancer.
31
32 It appeared to us as though they were trying to deny the
33 obvious, i.e. that there was a relationship between diet
34 and cancer, as stated in their own booklet; and later on in
35 hearings, when the word "cause" was used, we felt it was
36 just them trying to hype up what was in the leaflet, to
37 confuse the issues, because they were in a sticky situation
38 and they wanted to confuse the court and say: "There is no
39 proven cause and effect; therefore, there is no link."
40
41 In terms of the context of the rest of the leaflet, we
42 completely reject the interpretation that the Plaintiffs
43 are putting on the leaflet.
44
45 Maybe I will just say what we feel you might find that the
46 various parts of the leaflet did mean?
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have to take it as a whole. If I just
49 looked at the cartoon, for instance, since the
50 slaughterhouses are places of death, if it says, "If the
51 slaughterhouse doesn't get you, the junk food will", if
52 I just looked at that cartoon, and since on the same page
53 there is reference to McDonald's junk food, I might think
54 that that simply means "McDonald's food will kill you"; and
55 because animals, obviously, are not eating it, it must
56 refer to men and women. But I have to look at it all.
57 Obviously, it might be more sophisticated than that. What
58 has been said against you is that, by the same token, you
59 do not just read the text while ignoring the cartoon.
60
