Day 031 - 05 Oct 94 - Page 31
1 A. Well, it is the recommendation 3321 on the Expert Food
2 Policy and Heart Disease and Cancer which is published at
3 the end of the proceedings of this workshop as
4 recommendations that came from the conference. It says:
5 "In view of the very serious nature of nutrition related
6 disease in certain technically advanced countries, it
7 would be undesirable for those countries to transfer their
8 principles of food technology and agriculture to other
9 countries in which cardiovascular disease, breast or colon
10 cancer are not at this time a problem".
11
12 Q. That was discussed at this conference?
13 A. Yes. I think it is fair to say represents the views
14 of the people, the majority of the people that were at
15 that conference.
16
17 Q. Right. So their view was fairly obviously that there was
18 a relationship between nutrition and those diseases?
19 A. Yes.
20
21 Q. The particular type of nutrition was the style found
22 in ---
23 A. Yes, I mean -----
24
25 Q. -- western countries?
26 A. Yes, it is a story that has been going on for a long
27 time, but we are talking about the high fat, high
28 saturated fat, low fibre diet that is typical of
29 contemporary western countries. It is fair to say that
30 the bulk of the conference concerned evidence with regard
31 to details of this matter.
32
33 Q. Do you want to explain a bit more?
34 A. Well, not really. I think it just went into the
35 details of thrombosis, the details of vascular disease, in
36 particular what was known at that time about diet and
37 cancer.
38
39 Q. Just to make things a bit clearer, what was the kind of
40 status of the conference? Why NATO, or whatever?
41 A. Well, NATO supports conferences where scientists get
42 together in what is so-called a workshop format to discuss
43 issues that are of contemporary importance, and I suppose,
44 like any other organisations, it will support conferences
45 which have some direct bearing on its own activity. I
46 presume that the link in these cases would be for them,
47 supporting conferences of this sort, was the concern,
48 which I have already alluded to earlier, of government
49 about the diet and health during the last World War, and
50 it has been an ongoing concern in Defence ministries ever
51 since.
52
53 Q. Who was at the conference?
54 A. The conference would not have been attended -- I
55 cannot remember now who was there -- but it would not have
56 been attended by NATO chiefs of staff. It would have been
57 attended by scientists and the like. It was, basically, a
58 scientific conference with scientists exchanging evidence
59 and new information on matters related to this topic. I
60 mean, the Ministries of Defence and various other people
