Day 256 - 04 Jun 96 - Page 20

     
     1
     2        That $120 billion, is that calculated on the 60 to
     3        70 per cent of the people who you said will get these
     4        diseases in, say, the US or the UK at some stage in their
     5        lives?
     6        A.  Yes.  I took these data -- these estimates, I should
     7        say -- from Professor Neil Barnard, in part, and also from
     8        just some inquiries that I had placed to Washington, asking
     9        people at the Department of Health and Human Services.
    10
    11        We need better numbers on this, incidentally, I should
    12        say.  I am rather embarrassed to say that we do not have
    13        very good, fixed numbers on this, because it depends on how
    14        one calculates, you know, a particular kind of savings.
    15
    16   Q.   Right.  Then you continue:
    17
    18        "The savings in utilisation of the earth's resources
    19        resulting from the use of fewer livestock for human food
    20        also should be enormous.
    21
    22        "Developing countries should continue to use their
    23        traditional plant-based diets but give more emphasis to
    24        food quality and variety (of plant-based foods).  This will
    25        constitute an enormous savings in future capital otherwise
    26        needed to sustain a Western-type food production system in
    27        these countries.  Land use in these countries would be more
    28        environmentally friendly and equitable, thus providing a
    29        more politically stable condition.
    30
    31        "The optimum diet for peoples residing in all countries of
    32        the world appears to be virtually the same.
    33
    34        "The present dietary guidelines, mostly focused on the
    35        effects of dietary fat when reduced to 30 per cent of
    36        calories, is not likely to yield the disease prevention
    37        benefits originally inferred.
    38
    39        "At least 97 to 98 per cent of the available data" --
    40        presumably in your China study, yes?
         A.  Yes.
    42
    43   Q.   "...are yet to be analysed, interpreted and published." Do
    44        you stand by that statement?
    45        A.  Yes, I do.
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The penultimate paragraph amounts to saying
    48        that the reduction should be considerably greater or at
    49        least greater to yield disease prevention benefits?
    50        A.  Yes. 
    51 
    52   MR. MORRIS:  Can I just ask you, for some reason I have written 
    53        a note here in my paper, but do you have any comment about
    54        the claims that the high fat diet in Greece and Spain is
    55        some kind of disproof of the links between high fat and
    56        chronic diseases?
    57        A.  I understand your question correctly.  There has been
    58        much made recently of the fact that in certain
    59        Mediterranean countries their high fat diet is associated
    60        with a lower rate of heart disease and some cancers, so,