Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 41
1 drawn between the evidential basis for proposing a causal
2 link between lung smoking and cancer on the one hand and
3 diet and cancer of the colon and breast on the other hand
4 which was, of course, entirely in conformity with what
5 Dr. Barnard had said in his second report.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you have a reference for that part?
8
9 MR. RAMPTON: For that part of cross-examination, my Lord,
10 I will find it. What, in effect, Ms. Steel was putting was
11 that since the dogs or the beagles had not got lung cancer
12 when they were made to smoke cigarettes, the evidence for
13 the assertion which Dr. Arnott, your Lordship will
14 remember, put in black at the very top of my league table,
15 No. 10, as being a certainty of a causal relationship, the
16 evidence for that proposition was really no better than it
17 was for the relationship between diet and cancer of the
18 bowel and breast.
19
20 My Lord, I will try to find the reference that I had. That
21 is re-examination; I am just going to make a short
22 reference to that in a minute. My Lord, it starts at line
23 35 on page 7. I think it is still Ms. Steel -- yes, it is.
24
25 MS. STEEL: What day are we on?
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: This is still 12th September.
28
29 MR. RAMPTON: Start of cross-examination, 12th September. My
30 Lord, it runs through to line 14 on page 9. There is,
31 certainly, one passage. I have a belief that there was
32 another passage; it may not matter. My Lord, the whole
33 thread of the cross-examination, the whole thrust of it, on
34 the part of both Defendants (and it is not confined to
35 Ms. Steel) was that, really, Dr. Arnott was being far too
36 cautious in denying a causal association between diet and
37 the cancers with which your Lordship is concerned in this
38 case. They attacked his refusal to see population studies
39 as more than suggestive. They were unhappy about his
40 reliance on cohort or prospective studies and about his
41 caution in relation to animal studies.
42
43 They suggested to him that the consensus of scientific
44 opinion (which is a slightly different question) was that
45 there was, indeed, a causal association between diet and
46 these cancers. I refer, in particular, to page 53, the
47 whole of it. I think that is Mr. Morris -- yes, it is.
48 One comes back to the relationship between smoking and lung
49 cancer on page 54, this time through Mr. Morris.
50
51 My Lord, I would just, if I may, give your Lordship one
52 reference from the re-examination by me on 13th September.
53 I may have given the wrong date -- it is 12th September.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. You have been referring to
56 12th September.
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: All along until now.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
