Day 296 - 07 Nov 96 - Page 08


     
     1        appears on page 35 of the abstract bundles of pleading,
     2        that there is a considerable amount of evidence of a
     3        relationship between a diet high in fat, sugar and sodium
     4        and low in fibre and diseases such as obesity, high blood
     5        pressure, heart disease and some forms of cancer.
     6
     7        This fact is acknowledged in a booklet published by the
     8        second Plaintiff in or around 1985 entitled "Good Food,
     9        Nutrition and McDonald's", which is not generally available
    10        in stores.  The same pamphlet acknowledges that dietary
    11        fibre is important as it adds bulk to the diet and
    12        therefore helps prevent constipation.
    13
    14        The reference for that particular part is on internal page
    15        8 of that pamphlet, "Good Food, Nutrition and McDonald's",
    16        which is found either on the Defendants' supplementary list
    17        of documents number 8 or pink volume 6, tab 5.
    18
    19        People can see for themselves that we did not change the
    20        meaning, when we pleaded that meaning -- or, sorry, when we
    21        pleaded that paragraph as justification, we did not change
    22        the meaning of what McDonald's had said in their own
    23        booklet.  However, instead of McDonald's doing the decent
    24        thing and admitting the whole paragraph that we pleaded,
    25        since it was entirely from their own book, they made the
    26        following limited admission - and this was on 15th December
    27        1993 that they made this admission - that there is a
    28        considerable amount of evidence of a relationship between a
    29        diet high in saturated fat and sodium and obesity, high
    30        blood pressure and heart disease.
    31
    32        And later stating, during their application to amend their
    33        Statement of Claim, that it was obvious that when they
    34        admitted the relationship in this formal admission it was a
    35        causal relationship they were admitting.
    36
    37        But, nonetheless, they admitted the cancer and diabetes
    38        despite the recognition in their own pamphlet, which
    39        obviously left those in as an issue, and it is our view
    40        that, bearing in mind the similarity between the passage in
    41        the fact sheet and McDonald's own pamphlet, it was
    42        extremely oppressive of McDonald's to force us to call
    43        evidence on the issue of diet and cancer, and in our view
    44        it is a complete abuse of the libel laws and the process of
    45        the court to force us to do that.
    46
    47        This position, or this point, was given added weight
    48        when -- sorry, I have just lost my notes -- when Robert
    49        Beavers, the senior vice president of the first Plaintiff
    50        and member of the board of directors of McDonald's
    51        Corporation, was challenged with the London Greenpeace fact
    52        sheet extract and asked to compare it with the extract from
    53        "Good Food, Nutrition and McDonald's", and he replied that
    54        he could not spot any difference between the two.  That was
    55        on day 4, page 90, line 5.
    56
    57        Then he went on, when he came back to give further
    58        evidence, to criticise McDonald's own pamphlet when he
    59        mistook it for the London Greenpeace fact sheet.  And that
    60        was on day 123, page 43, line 45.

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