Day 256 - 04 Jun 96 - Page 56
1 A. Right.
2
3 Q. This top mean is if the highest quartile is 35 per cent.
4 Obviously there is no significant difference at the lower
5 end, is there?
6 A. Well, ours was 6 to 24 and this one is 15 to ----
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You move from 6 to 24 and the average was
9 about ----
10
11 MR. RAMPTON: I am sorry, my Lord, was your 6 a mean?
12 A. Yes, it was.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Was it a mean?
15 A. Yes it was a mean, surprisingly.
16
17 Q. So that was a mean in the lowest community, as it were?
18 A. Right.
19
20 Q. Your question, Mr. Rampton, before I interrupted was
21 whether the differences were significant and what were you
22 going to say about that, between these means and your
23 means?
24 A. I thought the point of the question was to know whether
25 or not these differences were really real or not and I am
26 saying, if that is the question then my answer is yes, they
27 are.
28
29 MR. RAMPTON: His Lordship is right, perhaps it was not a very
30 good question. I meant to be specific. These findings as
31 to the strength of the association are similar to yours?
32 A. Yes, except for the fact that the ranges are rather
33 different.
34
35 Q. That was going to be my next question. What difference
36 does that make?
37 A. Well, that tends to suggest, and in fact it is good
38 evidence to suggest, that over the whole range all the way
39 from the 6 to the 35, if you will, just taking 2 sets of
40 data, we get this sort of rather general slope and
41 consistent relationship between dietary fat intake and
42 breast cancer, although the relationship, when is examined
43 just for fat, we get a significant relationship just for
44 fat, but it also says that we are taking away from that
45 relationship some of these adjustment factors that, in my
46 view, ought not to be subtracted.
47
48 Q. I see. You would not disagree with these orders, that for
49 their study group, or their study population, their figures
50 are not statistically significance because that is what
51 they are saying, is it not?
52 A. Yes. They are saying though after adjustment. They
53 are saying it is not statistically significant after
54 adjustment for these factors, and my point is: Why are
55 they making these kind of adjustments? It comes back to
56 this question concerning how is the reductionist nature of
57 the hypothesis for investigations? They are trying to just
58 focus just on fat and turning around and taking away some
59 of the things that that actually causes.
60
