Day 083 - 06 Feb 95 - Page 07


     
     1        in by the words "at worst poisonous" or as "food
     2        poisoning".
     3
     4   MR. RAMPTON:  No, My Lord.  "Food poisoning" and "poisonous"
     5        must in the context of the leaflet as a whole, "poisonous"
     6        must mean food poisonous or capable of causing food
     7        poisoning; food poisoning is, we would submit, an ordinary
     8        phrase having an ordinary meaning to ordinary people,
     9        something as follows:  A sudden illness brought on by the
    10        consumption of food which is contaminated with pathogenic
    11        organisms.  I am not saying that the man in the street who
    12        read this leaflet would phrase it in that way, but what he
    13        thinks of when he thinks of food poisoning, when he sees
    14        those words in the leaflet, is, if I may put it bluntly,
    15        vomit and diarrhoea caused by food which is "off" or
    16        contaminated.
    17
    18        He does not when he sees the words "food poisoning" think
    19        in terms of long-term degenerative illness brought on by
    20        the consumption of food over a period of time.
    21
    22        My Lord, the reason we made no objection to diabetes was
    23        really a practical one.
    24
    25   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Could you just pause there a moment?
    26
    27   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, sorry.
    28
    29   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, diabetes?
    30
    31   MR. RAMPTON:  The reason we made no objection to that was really
    32        a practical one.  May I put it like this:  It seemed to us
    33        (and still seems to us, and so we shall urge upon your
    34        Lordship at the end of this case) that the sting of the
    35        passage about degenerative disease and, indeed, about food
    36        poisoning in the context of a leaflet about McDonald's is
    37        that it implies at the very least and in the case of two
    38        degenerative kinds of diseases, specifically the mention of
    39        cancer and heart disease, the accusation is more than
    40        implicit, it seemed to us that the leaflet implies that
    41        McDonald's had been at the very least reckless in the moral
    42        sense with their customers' health.
    43
    44        I say that for this reason, that, unlike BSE, the risks of
    45        food poisoning by contamination with pathogens has been
    46        known about for a very long time.  The customer reading
    47        that leaflet is going to say to himself:  "Well, I wonder
    48        what steps, if any, McDonald's take to prevent what they
    49        must know is a well-recognised risk?"  In relation to the
    50        other two diseases the words of the pamphlet are quite 
    51        explicit.  I need not ask your Lordship to get it out. 
    52        There is a specific accusation of concealing the risk of 
    53        degenerative diseases, despite the fact that that risk is,
    54        according to the leaflet, at any rate by 1989 a well-known
    55        or well-accepted medical fact.
    56
    57        My Lord, that does not apply to BSE and more
    58        importantly -----
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But that is your second point, is it not,

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