Day 016 - 22 Jul 94 - Page 16
1 There is a similar case for people advocating
vegetarianism to draw the attention of the people they are
2 directing their advice at to these risks; that is all.
3 Q. If it is reasonable for people to give such advice such as
you are doing, do you think it is reasonable for people to
4 advise that a diet high in fat, sodium and sugar is linked
with cancer of the breast, bowel and heart disease?
5 A. What I accept is that a diet which has a high
proportion of calories coming from saturated fat -- well,
6 that in populations where the proportion of saturated fat
in the diet is high, then the risks of heart disease will
7 be high. That basically is what it says in the grey
book. We have covered the ground again and again. I do
8 not think we have any disagreement on that. When it comes
to cancer of the bowel and cancer of the breast, then the
9 picture is more complicated.
10 Q. Is it reasonable to give advice such as a diet high in
fat, sugar and sodium and low in fibre is linked with
11 cancers of the breast, bowel and heart disease?
A. Well, I would just repeat what I have already said, as
12 you have repeated the question, that -----
13 Q. I want a direct answer.
A. I have told you.
14
MR. RAMPTON: If Ms. Steel is insisting on a direct answer
15 then, with respect, she should say what she means by the
word "linked". It is a weasel word. Causally linked or
16 statistically associated? The two things are not the
same.
17
MS. STEEL: Mr. Wheelock, are you saying it is OK to link
18 vegetarianism with anaemia based on this study?
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You are saying vegetarianism generally, are
you?
20
MS. STEEL: What do you mean?
21
MR. JUSTICE BELL: One of the things about this -- it may mean
22 your point is just the same; I notice the ages of the
children are between 12 and 14.
23
MS. STEEL: I see.
24
MR. JUSTICE BELL: The girls are starting to menstruate, and
25 may have been menstruating for some time, but they are
menstruating, or most of them are going to be -- I can see
26 the difference in figures between the boys and girls -- it
may be an unhappy coincidence if they have a period of
27 time when they are vegetarian; in a broad sense they stop
eating meat, maybe they stop eating animal products
28 altogether; they may have no proper advice as to how they
can do that without running into deficits at various
29 times?
A. That would be my position.
30
Q. Where do we go from there, so far as you are concerned?
