Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 43
1 Lordship's guidance to the Defendants. Dr. Barnard began
2 on the 10th.
3
4 What is perfectly apparent is this, that even if the penny
5 had not dropped before (which, plainly, from the
6 cross-examination of Dr. Arnott and Professor Wheelock it
7 had), the Defendants realised what they needed to do before
8 they called Mr. Cannon and Professor Crawford, because more
9 or less as they arrived in the witness box we were given
10 new statements which, in a way their previous statements
11 had not done, addressed the issue of causation four-square.
12
13 When I say "the issue of causation", I mean in relation to
14 those two gentlemen, not the issue whether McDonald's food
15 causes these degenerative diseases, because that is not an
16 issue that has been addressed by any of the Defendants'
17 witnesses for this very good reason, that your Lordship may
18 think it would be impossible to find any respectable
19 scientist or medical man, beyond perhaps Dr. Barnard, who
20 would be willing to go into that witness box and say that a
21 McDonald's meal can give you cancer or heart disease.
22
23 MS. STEEL: Can I just say Dr. Barnard did not say so.
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: No, he said it in his statement but not in the
26 witness box.
27
28 MS. STEEL: No, he did not say it in his statement either.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, that being so, what was addressed by
31 these two gentlemen, Mr. Cannon, Professor Crawford, was
32 what I call the subsidiary issue, whether there is a causal
33 relationship between diet and cancer.
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There were two limbs, as I understood,
36 subject to what the Defendants say to me in due course;
37 firstly, that it appeared to me that the way it was being
38 approached was (1) a diet high in etc. is a cause of
39 whichever degenerative disease; part (2) a significant
40 number of people eat enough McDonald's food to affect their
41 diet adversely, hence all the business about surveys and
42 heavy users.
43
44 MR. MORRIS: Is that something in the Plaintiffs' case or our
45 case?
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. That was what I thought your approach
48 was, but you tell me about it in due course.
49
50 MR. MORRIS: The third point is that -- we can address it later
51 -- but the third point -----
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You will have your opportunity in a moment.
54 I am not precluding that. I am just thinking aloud, but
55 that is what I thought the relevance of how often people
56 eat, the numbers of employees who eat frequently ---
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: Absolutely.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- at McDonald's.
