Day 269 - 25 Jun 96 - Page 36
1 friends might take objection to that.
2
3 Q. I am going to put to it you that you are probably about
4 right?
5 A. Yes.
6
7 Q. It does mean this, does it not, that so far as the
8 relationship between diet and cancer is concerned, anything
9 like confidence is something like 40 years away, if that is
10 right?
11 A. Could you please repeat that?
12
13 Q. Anything like certainty or confidence about a causative
14 relationship, if there be one, between diet and cancer is
15 something like 40 years in the future?
16 A. No, I do not agree with that, Mr. Rampton. I think in
17 1953 there was a body of people who were convinced that
18 saturated fats were a major cause of heart disease and
19 several of them had been writing previous to that and
20 indeed experiments were being done with cholesterol in the
21 1920's on diet and heart disease. I think there was -- the
22 beginnings -- what I really meant by saying that the cancer
23 research corresponds to that sort of date, is that there
24 was very strong epidemiological evidence at that time,
25 namely the seven country studies which is well-known, and
26 there was the beginnings of mechanistic explanations from
27 the experimental laboratory.
28
29 What we have with cancer of the breast, colon and prostate
30 is very strong epidemiological evidence, in my view, and
31 the beginning of experimental explanations for that
32 epidemiological contrast from country to country. That
33 actually leads to quite a degree of confidence.
34
35 Q. I will not say, Professor, that you are a voice crying in
36 the wilderness because one sincerely hopes that you are
37 right and people take preventive measures, but what you are
38 saying is not, for example, what the WHO says about these
39 topics, is it? It does not make so confident a prediction
40 for the future, does it?
41 A. I actually submitted in my evidence in-chief, I think,
42 the statement from the Scottish Department of Health, if
43 that is their correct name, in which they actually gave
44 figures which they felt that reduction in diet would --
45 reduction in dietary fats and particularly saturated fats,
46 they actually put figures on the proportions of cancer
47 deaths that would be saved by reducing to the numbers that
48 they recommend.
49
50 Now, the World Health Organisation, with respect, has a
51 very similar view, although they did not put numbers on it,
52 and I think the reason why the Scottish put numbers on it
53 is because Scotland has a far higher mortality than we do
54 down in the south-east, and I think if you read the World
55 Health Organisation document it does actually make
56 statements. I do not have it in front of me and I cannot
57 remember it in detail. But I do believe that their final
58 recommendations, although it may be qualified on the way to
59 those final recommendations, that the final recommendations
60 do say that there is sufficient evidence for a reduction in
