Day 035 - 12 Oct 94 - Page 43
1
2 MR. MORRIS: Can we just be clear that we are talking about the
3 same thing? Is it marriage or having children?
4
5 MR. RAMPTON: Both.
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7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They have both been mentioned by learned
8 authors as factors.
9
10 MR. RAMPTON: I do not know if you carry any figures in your
11 head for the average age of marriage for American women,
12 do you?
13 A. I am afraid I do not.
14
15 Q. Do you suspect that it is getting later all the time?
16 A. I am not sure what you mean by "all the time".
17
18 Q. There is a sort of linear graph that could be drawn over
19 the years for the average age of Americans women's
20 marriage?
21 A. I would say that that is true currently (and this is
22 not an area I have a great deal of knowledge of). It
23 probably is true in recent years. I rather -- I do not
24 know when that began, probably comparatively recently.
25
26 Q. Do you also think it is true in America, or might be true
27 in America, that on the whole women are having fewer
28 children than they used to?
29 A. On the whole, that probably is true.
30
31 Q. Certain it is, I suppose, Dr. Barnard, that American women
32 on average have fewer children than people in, let us say,
33 South America or China -- I do not know about China.
34 A. I am actually not -----
35
36 Q. Let us leave China out it?
37 A. I think we are getting beyond the area of my expertise
38 when we talk about the ......
39
40 Q. I wondered about that, you see, because if you are going
41 to propose a diet as a causal factor in incidence of
42 breast cancer, do you not have to consider all the other
43 variables before you can reach a sensible conclusion?
44 A. In my reading of the literature review articles, such
45 as the one you have presented me, that factor is not
46 described as being one in which very much information is
47 available or very much credence given.
48
49 Q. We will read on then, shall we? I have got to the
50 section: Risk factors with breast cancer, and I will read
51 it again because it is so long ago now: "As early as 1700
52 Ramazzini", whom we may assume was an Italian, I suppose,
53 "observed that child-bearing reduces the risk breast
54 cancer. In an international study, MacMahon and others
55 found that the dominant protective factor was an earlier
56 age at first birth, rather than the number of children: a
57 first birth after the age of 35 years increased the risk
58 about threefold compared with a first birth before the age
59 of 20."
60
