Day 206 - 22 Jan 96 - Page 11
1 than, you know, just one or two points he made in the
2 evidence he gave before. So, this is the further
3 exploration that was being asked for, or being suggested,
4 into the whole subject. The fact that he does not
5 say, "sunset yellow, we know it is 1.5 per cent of the
6 population have an adverse reaction" is because it is not
7 possible to say something like that, because he has to deal
8 with the scientific evidence that is available at this
9 time. He has obviously scaled his way through all the
10 existing relevant information and given his expert opinion
11 in continuation of what he gave before.
12
13 For example, he does deal with BHA and BHT; he mentions
14 those, because they are a particular type of additive. He
15 also deals with food colouring quite a lot in this. For
16 example, if we look on page 10 again, at the top of the
17 page: "....data from the Hyperactive Childrens' Support
18 Group indicates that approximately 66% of a sample of 357
19 hyperactive children known to them appeared to respond
20 adversely to at least some foods, while approximately 88%
21 of that sample were reported to have responded adversely to
22 synthetic colourings and some 74% to preservatives."
23
24 His expert view is that there are classes of additives at
25 issue here -- for example, synthetic colourings should be
26 one class and preservatives would be another class -- which
27 he is able to deal with in this statement as a class.
28
29 It seems to me that -- I mean, I have not got off the top
30 of my head all the references from the statement -- but it
31 seems to me the Plaintiff's case is the cigarettes and
32 cancer case yet again: that you cannot identify how many
33 Marlboros somebody smokes and, therefore, you cannot
34 criticise Marlboro; or even the more sophisticated case
35 that it is established that a high fat diet is linked to
36 heart disease and cancer, as has been established in this
37 case, but you can argue about which specific fat content --
38 and we have had, is it all fat, is it this particular type
39 of fat -- the point being that we are dealing with classes
40 of additives, we are dealing with classes of diseases and
41 reactions. If it is necessary, Dr. Millstone no doubt
42 could, whenever he mentions food colouring, identify the
43 specific ones that he has already gone into in great detail
44 in court, say: "Food colourings, and I include in this
45 heading sunset yellow, amaranth", or whatever it is; and
46 that would actually bring in those specific additives. So,
47 really, if that would help the court, I am sure he would be
48 prepared to do that, although it is an unnecessary delay
49 and time and expense for him.
50
51 The reference to tartrazine is relevant, in that it is a
52 synthetic colourant and, therefore, a report on tartrazine
53 may throw light, or is almost certain to throw light on the
54 reactivity of people to the other colourants. That would
55 be properly open to cross-examination by the Plaintiffs if
56 they felt that you could not compare tartrazine to other
57 synthetic colourants and draw any expert conclusion from a
58 report on tartrazine.
59
60 Dr. Millstone did not say that he did not have any
