Day 033 - 10 Oct 94 - Page 49


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It is remarkably like the introductory
     3        passage in Professor Wheelock's first statement.
     4
     5   MR. MORRIS:  All right.  (To the witness):  Then the next point
     6        is -- may be the important one -- if you read the next
     7        sentence:  "Despite all this" -- just to summarise that
     8        previous paragraph, it says cancers take a long time to
     9        develop?
    10        A.  Right.
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What Professor Wheelock said in one of his
    13        statements was that if you have something which is
    14        poisonous, the cause and effect may be pretty obvious
    15        because you ingest it and immediately you become very ill;
    16        whereas you have this problem with cause and effect with
    17        diet, that if there is a causative link at all, it is a
    18        chronic matter.
    19
    20        It may not be a very elegant summary, but that is,
    21        effectively, what he, if my recollection is right, was
    22        saying at the beginning of one of his statements.  That
    23        appears to be what he is saying here.
    24        A.  Yes.
    25
    26   Q.   What question do you want to ask Dr. Barnard?
    27
    28   MR. MORRIS:  He says in the next line:  "Despite all this, we
    29        have now reached a point where I believe it is justifiable
    30        to make recommendations to the public".
    31
    32   MR. RAMPTON:  Again, my Lord, that is not a matter of dispute
    33        in this case at all; it is common ground.
    34
    35   MR. MORRIS:  He is referring here to chronic diseases and
    36        specifically to cancer prevention.  Do you think it is
    37        justifiable to make recommendations -----
    38
    39   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Mr. Rampton put the Grey Book which makes
    40        recommendations with approval.
    41
    42   MR. MORRIS:  OK.
    43
    44   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The question is whether, or one of the
    45        questions is whether the recommendations are there,
    46        because certainly it is not going to any harm to reduce
    47        fat intake and, on the evidence, it might help, or whether
    48        there is the positive case which you are batting for
    49        or  -----
    50 
    51   MR. RAMPTON:  I do not know whether it would help at this 
    52        stage; I do not see our task in this case as having to 
    53        disprove a possible causative effect for diet in relation
    54        to cancer.  According to whatever meaning your Lordship
    55        attaches to the pamphlet, I see it as one of the potential
    56        cases which the Defendants have to make, that it is
    57        positively a cause of cancer.  Those two things are quite
    58        different.
    59
    60        I have always accepted (and my witnesses have all

Prev Next Index