Day 024 - 15 Sep 94 - Page 64


     
     1        extended to us on July 7th of 1986 by telling them what we
     2        were doing.  I read them the April 24 letter, as reflected
     3        in that transcript, and I also read to them the press
     4        release that is at page 125 of the court's binder.  That
     5        too -- I have referred to the press release earlier.
     6        I have never, or not recently, at any rate, seen the
     7        original.  This is something typed up by someone other
     8        than the Attorney General of Texas.  As I pointed out, it
     9        misspells the press secretary's name.  I do not believe
    10        that she would have done that.
    11
    12        It is possible that I read that to them at their request.
    13        I would not have called and said:  "Listen to what we are
    14        fixing to say about you".  If they had asked for it, I
    15        probably would have directed them to our press office and
    16        asked them to get the information from them.  As I said, I
    17        do not recall having had the press release at the time or
    18        even since then.
    19
    20   MS. STEEL:  But, as you said, you did not phone them and say:
    21        "Here is the press release"?
    22        A.  I did not, no.
    23
    24   Q.   There was a section on page 51 where Mr. Horwitz was asked
    25        about your views on nutrition and the sort of food that
    26        people should eat.  He said that his impression from
    27        having dealt with you face-to-face was that the type of
    28        foods that McDonald's served are bad foods, and you gave
    29        an example, hamburgers, meat products, things which have
    30        saturated fats in them or fats in them, and he went on to
    31        say that was your preference like that of other Attorneys
    32        General who he had dealt with who were vegetarians, and
    33        that their view was that you would be better -- that
    34        McDonald's would be better off selling things other than
    35        hamburgers.  Is there anything that you would want to say
    36        in response to that?
    37        A.  I am not now, nor have I ever been, a vegetarian.
    38        I have nothing against McDonald's.  I have nothing against
    39        the types of foods that McDonald's manufactures and
    40        sells.  I, on occasion, have (and still do) take my
    41        children to McDonald's and eat there myself.  This is not
    42        about me.  What I choose to eat is not of relevance to me,
    43        or was not of relevance to me, as prosecutor.  My job, as
    44        I said earlier, was to determine what the entire consuming
    45        public, or a significant proportion of the consuming
    46        public, wanted to hear and to learn and to ensure that
    47        where the law required that they got the information
    48        affirmatively, and that, as the law required, they did not
    49        get deceptive information for them to use in making their
    50        purchasing decisions. 
    51 
    52        There are people who do not want to eat at McDonald's; 
    53        there are people who do not eat hamburgers. I am not one
    54        of them.  But people who do not want unhealthy foods
    55        should not be given false information to assuage their
    56        concerns so they do eat those very unhealthy foods,
    57        believing them to be, if not healthy, then at least less
    58        unhealthy.  In other words, so you can eat more of them in
    59        your diet than they had been eating.
    60

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