Day 242 - 29 Apr 96 - Page 36
1 There still remains the question: Well, is that an
2 increased risk, a very real risk or still a negligible
3 risk?
4
5 I am going to ask Mr. Rampton if he wants to add anything
6 in a moment because I may have misunderstood where the
7 issue is and if he thinks I have he will no doubt tell me,
8 but that is the way I see it subject to anything
9 Mr. Rampton says.
10
11 MR. MORRIS: I mean ----
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We have had similar conversations in the
14 past, and I think the analogy I used, perhaps not a very
15 good one, was that if one walked out of this building and
16 walked across the Strand without using the pedestrian
17 crossing, you would increase the risk of getting knocked
18 down. You still have to ask whether the risk was a very
19 real one or not. That does not pretend to be an accurate
20 analogy but I use it merely to demonstrate what is still at
21 large.
22
23 MR. MORRIS: Can we just maybe come back on this after lunch.
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: I would like to say something.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let me hear what Mr. Rampton has to say about
28 it first because, at the end of the day -- I am not going
29 to decide the issues now -- you must just call those of
30 your witnesses whose statements have been served whom you
31 want to, but you have to decide very quickly who they are.
32 At the moment, it is just a question of Mr. Brown, so we
33 can be specific. You have to decide whether you want to
34 call Mr. Brown or not, and Mr. Rampton, if he wants to call
35 Professor Mason, will have to make an application to me and
36 then I will either give him leave or I will not.
37
38 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I would like to say something for two
39 reasons. The first is, as ever, Ms. Steel has not
40 correctly remembered what the admission actually says,
41 which is, and I will read it again, I have done it many
42 times before, but I will read it again: "That there is a
43 considerable amount of evidence of a relationship between a
44 diet high in saturated fat and sodium and obesity, high
45 blood pressure and heart disease" and as I added formally
46 the other day, though I have said it on many previous
47 occasions, "It is further admitted that that relationship
48 is causal in nature".
49
50 That is as far as it goes. It had nothing whatever to do
51 with the meaning for which I got leave but which, in the
52 end, your Lordship rejected which was, in effect, to assert
53 a direct causal relationship between eating the meals and
54 the onset of the degenerative diseases as though they were
55 toxic in other words.
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Subject to that rider, I am grateful to you
58 for reminding me, I have not looked at it for some time, do
59 you have to say anything about the analysis of what is
60 still at issue?
