Day 030 - 03 Oct 94 - Page 26
1 beginning in the middle 1980s, to the best of my
2 recollection, 84/85 and onwards; many others in the
3 States, but those really are the key organisations in the
4 States. Based on that, the American government, which is
5 to say, specifically, the Department of Health and Human
6 Services and the US Department of Agriculture, which are
7 the equivalent of our Department of Health and Ministry of
8 Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
9
10 Q. But outside of America, give some of the other -----
11 A. Respectively, I think that will do. It is fair to say
12 that in the States the evidence on diet and cancer is not
13 only accepted by -- is accepted within the medical
14 profession and amongst scientists, but also by government
15 and, therefore, generally speaking, also by other relevant
16 sections of society as well, such as industry.
17
18 In Europe, the situation is not as developed. When this
19 case was brought to my attention first of all, what I
20 recall saying was that the evidence, or the case on diet
21 and cancer is not so generally well known in this country,
22 certainly, as the case on diet and cardiovascular
23 disease. It would be, I think, quite impossible for
24 anyone to mount -- to take the view that evidence on diet
25 and cardiovascular disease was not established in any
26 sense of the word in this country simply because the
27 government in this country has accepted the evidence on
28 diet and cardiovascular disease, whereas the government in
29 this country has not yet accepted the evidence on diet and
30 cancer in the same way.
31
32 What has happened in Europe, internationally, is the
33 European -- the Europe Against Cancer Organisation
34 produced a report in 1985 on diet and cancer which
35 contained dietary recommendations of the type already
36 described. WHO produced a report called Healthy Nutrition
37 (which I do not have here) which was specifically for
38 Europe, to the best of my recollection, in 86/87, which
39 again contained the same sort of recommendations.
40
41 Then on a world basis, the WHO produced a report "Diet,
42 Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases" in
43 1990. Of course, the role of the WHO formally is advisory
44 only relative to national sovereign states. The tendency
45 is that WHO's advice is to be taken on board by developed
46 countries, or countries which do not have fully developed
47 health services or advisory bodies of their own; whereas
48 major developed countries, such as our own, would tend to
49 want to take their own advice and then they would take
50 note of what WHO said and respect it. If WHO issues
51 recommendations they do not, therefore, become UK policy.
52 That is what I am trying to say.
53
54 What we do have in the UK is, first of all, the European
55 Code Against Cancer so-called ten commandments, which
56 apply to the UK inasmuch as we accept we are members of
57 the European Union. Also, more recently, the Scottish
58 statement on the Scottish diet, which makes specific
59 reference to diet and cancer which was published this or
60 last year, and which has been accepted by the Secretary of
