Day 031 - 05 Oct 94 - Page 44
1 outlet with a huge McDonald's Big Mac man as a balloon
2 almost occupying two stories high. There is a lot of
3 attention given to raising the image and drawing people
4 into this style of eating.
5
6 As I say, individually, there is nothing wrong with having
7 a beefburger or hamburger or anything like that. But
8 I think it is the collective pressure that is occurring
9 which is likely to -- may indeed has already had an
10 influence on the way people behave with regard to food and
11 food choices. That, I think, is really what I am trying
12 to drive at here.
13
14 MR. MORRIS: We are coming to the end of our questioning -- if
15 we could have our five minute break?
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We will have the five-minute break. You
18 finish your questions, then Mr. Rampton can carry out any
19 preliminary cross-examination and enquiries about
20 documentation.
21
22 MS. STEEL: Can I just ask something? If we get the paper
23 about the pregnant mothers, if there is something that we
24 particularly want to bring up, will that be all right to
25 do it at a later time?
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: When Professor Crawford comes back, if there
28 is something in relation to that paper, for instance, you
29 want to ask him about, raise it with me. I do not know
30 what Mr. Rampton's attitude would be. I think it is more
31 likely it will be a question of whether he would prefer
32 you to ask your questions before he goes any further
33 rather than in re-examination after he has finished rather
34 than any outright objection. I see him agreeing to that.
35
36 MS. STEEL: We may not want to ask anything but just in case.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. Raise it the moment you are about to
39 bring Professor Crawford back into the witness box.
40
41 MS. STEEL: OK.
42
43 (Short Adjournment)
44
45 MR. MORRIS: Can you, Professor Crawford, just explain what the
46 role of plausible biological mechanisms are in the
47 judgment on a particular link between diet and disease,
48 for example?
49 A. I think that if you make a statement about "dietary
50 fat causes heart disease" or "saturated fat causes heart
51 disease", in terms of epidemiology, it is useful to have a
52 biochemical mechanism at a cellular level so that you can
53 understand that because correlations can be misleading.
54 So biochemical plausibility is important to the acceptance
55 of epidemiological data.
56
57 Q. So, in other words, would you say that it was part of the
58 evidence towards making a judgment is whether that
59 judgement, that link is biologically plausible, whether
60 mechanisms can be shown to be plausible?
