Day 297 - 08 Nov 96 - Page 07
1 To me, this seems to be like a key thing in the Plaintiffs'
2 line of trying to defeat the statement in the London
3 Greenpeace fact sheet, that there is no conclusive proof
4 about the individual constituents, but to us -- well,
5 I would just say that it is completely irrelevant. Even if
6 that was true, that would be completely irrelevant.
7
8 The point is that the fact sheet is talking about that type
9 of diet; it is not specifying which constituent of the diet
10 has what effect. It is making a general overall statement
11 about that type of diet being connected to those types of
12 diseases. And it seems that both Professor Wheelock and
13 Dr. Arnott accepted that. It was just accepted,
14 effectively, that the view was that it was a causal
15 relationship, it was just they did not want to accept...
16 Well, they said that cause and effect for different
17 individual constituents of the diet and different
18 individual diseases had not been shown. Well, obviously,
19 they accepted some of them, for example, saturated fat and
20 heart disease.
21
22 Dr. Arnott stated that it had been suggested that there may
23 be relevance in diet and the development of breast cancer.
24 That was day 17, page 12. He was referred to a paper by
25 Laurence Kolonel et al in 1983, on day 17, page 14, which
26 found significant associations between ethnic specific
27 intakes of dietary fat and breast endometrial and prostate
28 cancers, and he acknowledged that the study was very
29 interesting. That was on day 17, page 15.
30
31 When he was asked about progress in the 1990s, he said that
32 the literature, or he claimed that the literature had
33 remained controversial, although he did accept that some
34 studies said that there was an association between diet and
35 colorectal cancer. That was on day 17, page 17.
36
37 Dr. Arnott agreed with the theory of Dr. Kinlen in 1987
38 that the evidence of fat as a cause of breast cancer may
39 have been exaggerated to some extent, but we submit that
40 this demonstrates that he must accept that some, albeit
41 reduced, evidence of the causal relationship does exist.
42 That was on day 17, page 18.
43
44 When he was asked if there was a relationship between
45 obesity and breast cancer, he conceded that obese women are
46 much more likely to recurrence and poor survival following
47 the diagnosis of breast cancer. He also acknowledged that
48 obesity may be a contributory factor to the cause of breast
49 cancer. That was day 17, page 20.
50
51 In response to Armstrong and Doll's report of 1975, Dr.
52 Arnott accepted that you could say that saturated fat or
53 total fat was related to breast cancer, although he said
54 that cause and effect was not established. But, I mean,
55 that is the point I am making; all these bodies and
56 scientists are making a note of the relationship, and it
57 must be a causal relationship they are referring to because
58 there probably would not be much point in carrying out a
59 study if it was not causal in the sense of be it
60 promotional or initiation, or whatever other strand of
