Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 35


     
     1        information so far as you are concerned.  You come to a
     2        meta analysis of this kind very recently, a month ago,
     3        which seems to challenge all your received assumptions,
     4        does it not?
     5        A.   Which particular paper are you talking about? .
     6
     7   Q.   The one in the American Journal?
     8        A.  I have to say that all the journals we receive in our
     9        department we do not actually receive that journal.
    10
    11   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That was not the question you were asked.
    12        Please listen.  You were not asked about that.   You can
    13        add it, if you like, at the end of your answer.
    14        A.   I was going say that from that I tend to look at the
    15        papers that come into our department as ones that are
    16        particularly valuable in, sort of, changing the perception.
    17          If there is any particular change in consensus, it would
    18        not be on the basis of one paper.  It would be on the basis
    19        of a sort of drip-drip with this paper and that paper, and
    20        then there is another one.  It would be a continued type of
    21        process.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Nevertheless, the question was whether this
    24        article would appear to challenge what you see as the
    25        consensus, or the accepted science, on this particular
    26        subject.  That is all you have been asked at the moment?
    27        A.   Right.
    28
    29   Q.   Do you accept that or not?
    30        A.   Reading this paper would not change the views and the
    31        advice I give on salt.
    32
    33   MR. RAMPTON:  No, but might it not make you think about it?  It
    34        is a meta analysis of 56 different studies, and it comes up
    35        with what you would say was a very remarkable conclusion
    36        does it not?
    37        A.  The conclusion it comes up with is the bit at the very
    38        bottom.  Taking aside the conclusion that -- the
    39        conclusion, I mean, I think, the conclusion, it depends on
    40        who wrote the paper, what the collusion was.  I think, in
    41        my experience of when people write scientific papers, often
    42        the conclusion, different people reading different papers
    43        come up with different conclusions, and then you have
    44        conferences where people look at the papers and different
    45        people reading the same paper might come up with very
    46        different conclusions.  So, before commenting on one
    47        particular scientific paper I think it is helpful to, you
    48        know, get some peer review going, get some comment.  I
    49        would be interested to see, for example, after this paper
    50        had been published, what people working in the field say
    51        about it, what the letters were.  So as an individual I do
    52        not think I am qualified to make comment on this particular 
    53        paper that you gave me.
    54
    55   Q.   I am not asking you to do that, but this is done by people
    56        who appear mostly to be Canadians.  Perhaps you would agree
    57        with me that since it is in the journal of the American
    58        Medical Association it has almost certainly been peer
    59        reviewed before it is published.  That is right, is it
    60        not?

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