Day 298 - 11 Nov 96 - Page 03
1 I have just said, what we go on with on Wednesday morning.
2
3 MS. STEEL: Okay, all right. I am going to try and deal now
4 with some of the later evidence of Professor Crawford,
5 which had not been dealt with in what I was referring to
6 the other day. Just to remind you that on day 269, when he
7 came back to give evidence, he said that since submitting
8 his first contribution it was his view that the evidence
9 relating to diet, heart disease and cancer had hardened.
10 That was on day 269, page 3, line 47.
11
12 On page 4 of the same day - this is all on day 269
13 actually, if that saves time, not keep saying it - from
14 lines 1 to 7 he said that as far as he was aware the World
15 Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture
16 Organisation have maintained the same position with regard
17 to the need to reduce total fat and, in particular,
18 saturated fat in diet to prevent heart disease. It was
19 also believed that would have a common effect on the common
20 cancers, especially cancer of the colon.
21
22 These probably are not in the best order, but I will do
23 them anyway. He did give some figures on page 8, line 10,
24 that in 1990 there were 169,514 deaths from heart disease
25 in the UK. And those were figures ----
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What were the figures?
28
29 MS. STEEL: 169,514 deaths from heart disease in the UK. They
30 were figures from the British Heart Foundation for 1990.
31 He also said on the same page that in the lower
32 socio-economic groups death from heart disease is more than
33 two times likely than in the higher socio-economic groups
34 and there was a similar socio-stratification for cancer.
35 He said that in the UK for lower socio-economic groups 4
36 and 5 the social trends in chronic illnesses are again
37 about 43 percent, twice those of the upper group.
38
39 He went on to say at line 51 that as far as the direct
40 impact of saturated fats and trans isomers are concerned
41 that his own data in the east end indicates that the high
42 risk sector of the UK population can obtain up to 30
43 percent of their dietary energy from take-away sources.
44 This was likely to apply to other inner city regions of the
45 UK where McDonald's had made the greatest inroads. He went
46 on to say then that hence mortality from heart disease is
47 greater in the sector of the population that was using
48 McDonald's and other similar fast food outlets.
49
50 On page 16, he related how he considered that it was
51 unlikely that people persuaded to eat regularly at
52 McDonald's would be uninfluenced and that they were most
53 likely to believe what they were told, that such meals were
54 nutritious, and eat in a similar style at home. He went on
55 to say that there was no doubt in the fact that deaths from
56 heart disease rose strikingly from 1950 to the late '80s in
57 parallel with the rise in the amount of dietary saturated
58 fat and trans-fatty acids, and that it was also true that
59 in the UK the bulk of the rise was due largely to a rise in
60 animal intake and in trans-fatty acids from hydrogenated
