Day 030 - 03 Oct 94 - Page 66


     
     1        a place like this.  I think it is a good analogy.  It is
     2        often said that the COMA committee which is the official
     3        committee in this country in this context has a judicial
     4        function.  So what they are concerned to do is to look at
     5        the evidence and in the case of more complex reports,
     6        actually themselves review the evidence which is going
     7        back to scientific bedrock, as I said, and then on that
     8        take a view.
     9
    10   Q.   So when you do your work, if I have understood it
    11        correctly, you will correct me if I am wrong, what you
    12        look at is what the various committees say about the
    13        scientific literature which they have reviewed?
    14        A.  That is exactly right, yes.
    15
    16   Q.   You yourself do not review the scientific literature
    17        itself?
    18        A.  The cancer division of the World Cancer Research Fund
    19        does do that, but we do not do it ourselves. Something
    20        that has not been referred to this morning is that the
    21        World Cancer Research Fund itself has a committee
    22        re-reviewing the literature on diet and cancer, as happens
    23        from time to time.  It is the job of those scientists with
    24        their scientific assistants to review the literature and
    25        to assess it.  What we do is to facilitate that process.
    26
    27   Q.   May I put something to you which you may think is rather a
    28        cheek but may illustrate what I am driving at.  I expect
    29        it is common ground between us, Mr. Cannon, there was a
    30        time when it was the official view of, at any rate, some
    31        people in the world that the world was flat.  Do you
    32        remember that?
    33        A.  I was not there myself -- I have heard it said, yes.
    34
    35   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have no knowledge of you, Mr. Cannon,
    36        which will in any way affect any decision I have to make
    37        in this case, but I do know you used to write articles in
    38        the early or middle 80s in a particular sporting
    39        magazine.  Did you have an interest in diet before that?
    40        A.  You were a subscriber to Running magazine?
    41
    42   Q.   I will not say I subscribed or not, but did you have an
    43        interest in dietary matters before then or was that the
    44        beginning of it?
    45        A.  Yes, indeed, I did.  Shall I give you a little of my
    46        history?
    47
    48   MR. RAMPTON:  No.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Not if the answer is "yes". 
    51 
    52   MR. RAMPTON:  The answer is, yes? 
    53        A.  I took a professional interest in issues to do with
    54        nutrition and health and good health, exercise and so
    55        forth in the late 1970s.
    56
    57   Q.   So far as I am concerned, Mr. Cannon, the fact that you
    58        once wrote for a magazine to which his Lordship might or
    59        might or not have once subscribed affects your credibility
    60        as a witness not one whit.

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