Day 254 - 22 May 96 - Page 07
1
2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you are actually suggesting that there have
3 been papers which put an opposing point of view, you had
4 better put them.
5
6 MS. STEEL: I do not have a specific paper to put, but when
7 I was speaking to some of our other witnesses, I put this
8 point to them,"Were there any other papers or had it all
9 been consistent in the way that was portrayed in the papers
10 in Dr. Arnott's report", and they said that there had still
11 been papers going opposite to what Dr. Arnott is saying?
12 A. I think, my Lord, what I am saying is that there is an
13 inconsistency in the reports. I am not saying there is
14 consistency one way or the other, but there has been a
15 certain trend that the more recent experiments have failed
16 to confirm what we believe was the situation in the 1960s
17 and 1970s.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There is also, it seems to me as a layman, a
20 very variable quality about the reports?
21 A. That is absolutely true.
22
23 Q. Which I have been asked to look at. Some, whichever way,
24 whichever direction they point in, come over as very
25 carefully thought out and researched and others, even a
26 layman might think ----
27 A. I am afraid that is absolutely true, my Lord.
28
29 Q. Not too hot?
30 A. In fact, if you look at the paper from the New England
31 Journal of Medicine, one of the authors, Jeffrey Howe, was
32 a person who, some years ago when he analysed a group of
33 studies, suggested that there was a direct relationship
34 between fat intake and breast cancer. His initial
35 evaluation was reviewed by Walter Willett, who is the
36 senior member of the team, and they could not find it and,
37 in order to try to get a better idea of what the situation
38 is, they have taken these large international studies to
39 try to amalgamate all the evidence together so that the
40 statistical powers of the analysis would be greater. They
41 have been unable, in this particular review, to find any
42 relationship between fat intake and breast cancer.
43
44 MS. STEEL: Walter Willett did a previous study on breast cancer
45 which came to the same conclusion; did not he?
46 A. That there was a relationship between fat and breast
47 cancer?
48
49 Q. No, that there was not or there was not a significant one?
50 A. Yes, he has said that before.
51
52 Q. Yes, but he also did a report saying that there was a
53 significant relationship between diet and colon cancer?
54 A. That is absolutely true, yes, and I think this
55 highlights the problems in both of these cancers, that the
56 evidence has been inconsistent, that some studies have
57 suggested that there might be a relationship, and other
58 studies have suggested that there is no relationship.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you remind me, I have a vague recollection
