Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 32


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I appreciate what he said precisely about
     2        when that had come to mind, but he was putting
     3        cardiovascular disease -- is it wrong to suggest that he
     4        was putting cardiovascular disease and cancer in the same
     5        basket, as it were?
     6
     7   MR. RAMPTON:  No, it is wrong to suggest that.  What he said
     8        was, I think, that the knowledge about the relationship
     9        between cancer and diet is at about the same stage now as
    10         -----
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, that is what I meant, but that he was
    13        propounding a possible common mechanism causally related to
    14        a diet high in fat etc..
    15
    16   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, that is right, and in relation to promotion
    17        only, I think.
    18
    19   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, the mechanism having partly a common
    20        route.
    21
    22   MR. RAMPTON:  And his conviction that there was or might be such
    23        association was derived, I think he said, in large part
    24        from two factors; (1) the striking nature of the population
    25        studies and (2) some of the animal experiments.
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    28
    29   MR. RAMPTON:  I think that is a fair summary.  My Lord, in this
    30        particular context, he is not so important because, as
    31        I say, he does not address what I call the primary question
    32        which is the question to which this amendment is directed
    33        and which the evidence of Dr. Barnard, Professor Wheelock,
    34        Dr. Arnott and Professor Keen was directed, which is
    35        whether McDonald's products can be held responsible for
    36        causing these diseases in the people that eat them.
    37        Dr. Barnard seems to have felt they were; the others did
    38        not -- whether they could, I should say, the others did
    39        not.
    40
    41        Passing from there, the next step would be to invite your
    42        Lordship's's attention to what we would say was more or
    43        less the end of the road, which is when you get to trial
    44        and you find not only -- I am only going to use Dr. Arnott
    45        as an example -- as clearly as could be that the Plaintiffs
    46        have approached the matter consistently in the same way
    47        since July of last year, but the Defendants have known
    48        perfectly well all along what the issue was.  That emerges
    49        as clearly as anything from the cross-examination of
    50        Dr. Arnott which, your Lordship will remember, was 
    51        separated by a period of six weeks from his examination 
    52        in-chief. 
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Shall we pause there?
    55
    56   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, yes.
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I will say five past two, to give you a few
    59        extra minutes.  I have actually flagged the paragraphs in
    60        those books.  If you can set in hand efforts to photocopy

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