Day 299 - 13 Nov 96 - Page 09
1 poisoning, and that is something that would have an
2 immediate poisonous effect.
3
4 This does come after the nutrition section, so people would
5 probably think that that was what it was referring to but,
6 if not, then they are going to think it is referring to the
7 food poisoning section where, as we know, there has been
8 the worst case scenario on more than one occasion. Just by
9 way of one example, the outbreak of food poisoning in
10 Preston, which McDonald's have admitted resulted in 13 or
11 14 people being hospitalised.
12
13 Just on what you were saying a moment ago, whilst you could
14 say that the sting of this section of the leaflet is that
15 McDonald's are deliberately exploiting children through
16 their use of advertising and gimmicks which encourage
17 children to pester their parents into taking them to
18 McDonald's to eat junk food, if you find that as the
19 meaning, it must be within the Plaintiffs' own pleaded
20 meaning, so it would only be able to be with reference to
21 the point about trapping children into thinking they are
22 not normal, or children being trapped into thinking they
23 are not normal if they do not go to McDonald's,
24 pressurising their parent into taking them there, and the
25 unhealthy nature of the food.
26
27 Can I just make an additional point on the poisonous part?
28 That, obviously, when you are deciding the meaning, it
29 should be borne in mind that people are going to use their
30 common sense when they read that; they are not going to
31 imagine that it means that if they go and eat a meal at
32 McDonald's they are going to drop dead, because they all
33 know lots of people who have eaten at McDonald's who have
34 eaten meals there and have not immediately dropped dead. I
35 mean, it is clear anyway, the leaflet, that it is talking
36 about the worst case scenario. It does say "at worst". It
37 is not talking about the general instantaneous effect of
38 every meal.
39
40 Just in terms of mediocrity, I mean, it is basically saying
41 that, you know, at best the food is not bad for you, but
42 there is nothing remarkable about it, and the point that is
43 relevant here is that if food is really tasty you do not
44 have to have loads of gimmicks to draw people in. You
45 know, if something is worth eating for itself, people come
46 in and get it anyway. But the reality is that at
47 McDonald's, if there was not all the dressing up with the
48 happy hats and muzac, and happy meals and advertising, and
49 the packaging, bright packaging and so on, that people
50 would not keep going back there and eating the food.
51
52 I mean, effectively, McDonald's witnesses have admitted so
53 much when they have said that without advertising they
54 would not exist. That was Paul Preston, McDonald's UK
55 president who admitted that. I mean, John Hawkes said it
56 as well. I can't remember how many others. It is clear
57 that McDonald's executives know the reality, that their
58 business is based on the creation of this fun and happy
59 place image which they have spent so much on cultivating.
60
