Day 265 - 19 Jun 96 - Page 03
1 front of me? For some reason it has gone into 1A. Yes.
2
3 MR. MORRIS: Just a few questions about your current position.
4 You said in your second statement you are the Director of
5 Science for the World Cancer Research Fund whose remit is
6 to reduce cancer risk by diet. Can you explain what that
7 entails, that position?
8 A. Being Director of Science you mean?
9
10 Q. Yes?
11 A. Two main things. One, as is conventional with such a
12 job in such an organisation, I am responsible for
13 administering the research grants that are given by the
14 charity from funds received from the public. These are
15 grants for laboratory epidemiological work, that sort of
16 thing. The main work I do for WCRF, however, is rather
17 different from that. The main work I do is what I have
18 admitted in this case, which is that I am Director of the
19 so-called diet and cancer project which is produced in a
20 report which, if you like, is designed to be the latest
21 state of the art, or I should say state of the science
22 report, on the role of food and nutrition in the prevention
23 of cancer.
24
25 Q. Right. You have said in your third statement, which I am
26 going to read out at some stage, that "it is the most
27 eminent body of scientists assembled for such a purpose."
28 Can you just explain your role in this? What do you mean
29 by that and your role in this?
30 A. The point about the most eminent body, I thought twice
31 before writing that because it sounds like a boast. I
32 think it is almost trivially true in the sense that no
33 organisation in the field has attempted to bring together
34 leading scientists in the field from all over the world.
35 Up to now any expert report on diet cancer specifically has
36 been thinking twice about this.
37
38 Yes, but there has been national and has involved
39 scientists from the nation in question, generally speaking,
40 with some exceptions. I mean you might get a report, for
41 example, like the 1928 National Academy of Science Report
42 which might have an advisor, as they did, from Japan. But,
43 as I say, no one has attempted to bring together leading
44 scientists in the field from all over the world, and
45 specifically from Northern America and Europe, and also
46 from all the other major continents of the world.
47
48 Q. Right?
49 A. The issue of whether -- I am not attempting to say
50 that each and every one of the panel is more eminent than
51 any other scientist in the field, I am talking
52 collectively.
53
54 Q. Right. In your recent statement you say you remain an
55 advisor to the World Health Organisation Europe and the UK
56 Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Health. Can
57 you say something about that and what your expertise is in
58 regard as advising those bodies?
59 A. The work I have done for WHO is occasional. There are
60 a number of individuals that WHO, in this case WHO European
