Day 266 - 20 Jun 96 - Page 35
1 information so far as you are concerned. You come to a
2 meta analysis of this kind very recently, a month ago,
3 which seems to challenge all your received assumptions,
4 does it not?
5 A. Which particular paper are you talking about? .
6
7 Q. The one in the American Journal?
8 A. I have to say that all the journals we receive in our
9 department we do not actually receive that journal.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That was not the question you were asked.
12 Please listen. You were not asked about that. You can
13 add it, if you like, at the end of your answer.
14 A. I was going say that from that I tend to look at the
15 papers that come into our department as ones that are
16 particularly valuable in, sort of, changing the perception.
17 If there is any particular change in consensus, it would
18 not be on the basis of one paper. It would be on the basis
19 of a sort of drip-drip with this paper and that paper, and
20 then there is another one. It would be a continued type of
21 process.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Nevertheless, the question was whether this
24 article would appear to challenge what you see as the
25 consensus, or the accepted science, on this particular
26 subject. That is all you have been asked at the moment?
27 A. Right.
28
29 Q. Do you accept that or not?
30 A. Reading this paper would not change the views and the
31 advice I give on salt.
32
33 MR. RAMPTON: No, but might it not make you think about it? It
34 is a meta analysis of 56 different studies, and it comes up
35 with what you would say was a very remarkable conclusion
36 does it not?
37 A. The conclusion it comes up with is the bit at the very
38 bottom. Taking aside the conclusion that -- the
39 conclusion, I mean, I think, the conclusion, it depends on
40 who wrote the paper, what the collusion was. I think, in
41 my experience of when people write scientific papers, often
42 the conclusion, different people reading different papers
43 come up with different conclusions, and then you have
44 conferences where people look at the papers and different
45 people reading the same paper might come up with very
46 different conclusions. So, before commenting on one
47 particular scientific paper I think it is helpful to, you
48 know, get some peer review going, get some comment. I
49 would be interested to see, for example, after this paper
50 had been published, what people working in the field say
51 about it, what the letters were. So as an individual I do
52 not think I am qualified to make comment on this particular
53 paper that you gave me.
54
55 Q. I am not asking you to do that, but this is done by people
56 who appear mostly to be Canadians. Perhaps you would agree
57 with me that since it is in the journal of the American
58 Medical Association it has almost certainly been peer
59 reviewed before it is published. That is right, is it
60 not?
