Day 039 - 20 Oct 94 - Page 22
1 prefer that children under six months should not receive
2 these materials.
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Have they not allowed a margin of safety in
5 the 12 weeks?
6 A. Not as far as I can tell from the literature I have
7 examined. There appears to be direct clinical evidence,
8 especially from children who have been bottled fed on
9 formula feed mixed with tap water with relatively high
10 nitrate contents; areas like East Anglia, that have turned
11 blue as a consequence.
12
13 Those symptoms have occurred in infants up to three months,
14 I believe. So I do not see any evidence of an assumed
15 margin of safety in the age they give.
16
17 Q. But no evidence of it having occurred for that reason in a
18 child over three months?
19 A. I have not seen it. If I was a child -- sorry, if
20 I was a parent of an infant in an area with very high
21 nitrate content in the tap water and I was giving them
22 formula feed, I would not cease using purified water at the
23 moment when they reach three months. I think I
24 would prefer to wait a little longer and continue to use
25 the purified water.
26
27 MR. MORRIS: Is that because there are nitrates or nitrites?
28 A. In the drink.
29
30 Q. In the drink?
31 A. Yes, indeed.
32
33 Q. You said about the contribution that the amounts that are
34 available in food might make?
35 A. Yes.
36
37 Q. Is it one of many sources of -- the way it is used in our
38 case here, one of many sources in food, for example?
39 A. Nitrates and nitrites said to occur naturally in many
40 foods and, indeed, you can take fresh vegetables, for
41 example, and analyse them. You will find nitrates present
42 in those vegetables. The extent to which one might
43 characterise this as natural deserves a little caution,
44 because it is quite clear that the nitrate content of
45 vegetables is a function of the quantities of nitrogenous
46 fertilizer applied to those crops, and the levels of
47 nitrates in crops grown on land which has not been treated
48 with nitrogenous fertilizer is significantly lower than
49 crops that have been treated with nitrate fertilizer.
50
51 Q. But if people are getting a lot of nitrites from various
52 sources in their food?
53 A. And water.
54
55 Q. Nitrates, then does the use of it as an additive then
56 become a contributory problem?
57 A. This is a matter of judgment. There are those who say,
58 if the levels of nitrates present in foods are a small
59 fraction of that deriving from other sources, such as
60 present in the vegetables and present in drinking water, or
