Day 033 - 10 Oct 94 - Page 47


     
     1        which I would be glad to produce if you wish, contained
     2        comments of physicians trying to figure out which of their
     3        patients actually need to stop smoking and which may
     4        continue to smoke cigarettes.  One such editorial
     5        concluded that as long as the patient has not developed a
     6        chronic cough -----
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not think you need develop this because
     9        I can remember perfectly well that there was sceptics
    10        about cigarette smoking and cancer.  But you are working
    11        on the basis that things are going to go the same way so
    12        far as diet and cancer and diabetes are concerned, are
    13        you?
    14        A.  Well, I believe that has already happened, in, I would
    15        say, perhaps back in 1982 when the National Research
    16        Council issued its report, which we have alluded to, Diet,
    17        Nutrition and Cancer, the green book, that was -----
    18
    19   MR. MORRIS:  I have one here; is that the National Academy of
    20        Sciences?
    21        A.  Yes, that is right.
    22
    23   Q.   Committee on Diet, Nutrition and Cancer.
    24        A.  Yes, that is right.
    25
    26   Q.   The National Research Council; it has various different
    27        names for some reason.
    28
    29   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have to say I am more concerned with what
    30        the evidence established, if anything, in the late 80s and
    31        now, insofar as it is relevant, rather than, I think,
    32        probably a comparison with cigarette smoking and lung
    33        cancer because, if the truth is that the evidence is less
    34        complete in relation to cancer than it is to lung, than it
    35        is to smoking or, rather, diet and cancer, than it is
    36        between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, I have probably
    37        got to put the latter factors on one side, have
    38        I not?  Have I not got to focus in on dietary factors and
    39        the various cancers which have been mentioned?
    40        A.  I wonder if there might be one brief point I might
    41        make, just to draw that to a close?  To this day when
    42        animals inhale cigarette smoke, they do not develop lung
    43        cancer as human beings do.  Moreover, the mechanisms have
    44        never been clearly sustained.  So, there are many, many
    45        holes in the links between tobacco and lung cancer, and
    46        yet the preponderance of evidence has been sufficient that
    47        the sceptics are a small minority.
    48
    49        Finished with that and talking only about diet, the animal
    50        studies say with dietary factors, particularly fat and 
    51        breast cancer, are far more compelling than they are with 
    52        inhaled tobacco, and all the other lines of evidence that 
    53        we have talked about today have led to the point where
    54        certainly somewhere by the mid-1980s the great majority of
    55        American researchers were convinced that there were links,
    56        that the links were of a causal nature, so much so that
    57        recommendations should be made for the American public
    58        specifically to reduce fat intake, but also to change
    59        their diet in various other ways as well.
    60

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