Day 077 - 25 Jan 95 - Page 05

     
     1        responsible for 70 per cent of all food-poisoning
     2        incidents, with chicken and minced meat (as used in
     3        burgers) being the worst offenders".  It speaks of animals
     4        been slaughtered and "meat can be contaminated with gut
     5        contents, faeces and urine, leading to bacterial infection.
     6          In an attempt to counteract infection in their animals,
     7        farmers routinely inject then with doses of antibiotics".
     8
     9        Then it goes on:   "These, in addition to growth promoting
    10        hormone drugs and pesticide residues in their feed build up
    11        in the animals' tissues and can further damage the health
    12        of people on a meat-based diet".  My Lord, those are quite
    13        specific in their allegations.  There is not any room into
    14        which an allegation about BSE can be forced in that box,
    15        nor on the previous page but one, what I have numbered page
    16        3, in the column headed:  "What's so unhealthy about
    17        McDonald's food?"  Again, it is entirely specific; it
    18        mentions cancers of the breast and bowel and heart disease
    19        and then at the bottom of the column constipation as well.
    20        My Lord, that being so, there is no part of the leaflet to
         which an allegation about BSE is, we would submit, fairly
    22        referable.
    23
    24        That is the first strand.  It does not benefit from being
    25        developed because it is there on the page; your Lordship
    26        either agrees with it or does not do so.
    27
    28        My Lord, the second submission is, perhaps, a slightly more
    29        subtle one.  It is based on what one finds in the last four
    30        paragraphs on the last page of Dr. Dealer's report.
    31
    32   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Let me read those again.
    33
    34   MR. RAMPTON:  11, 12, 13 and 14.  My Lord, I take it -- I have
    35        to say that because we have had no indication from the
    36        Defendants -- that so far as BSE is concerned, those four
    37        paragraphs represent whatever case the Defendants say they
    38        should be allowed to make in relation to McDonald's.  Those
    39        are the only four paragraphs of the case which are specific
    40        to McDonald's.
    41
    42        I say in passing -- I may say again; if I do I apologise in
    43        advance -- that it is quite wrong that the Defendants
    44        should seek to use this court as a forum for what is, no
    45        doubt, a very interesting debate between such as Dr. Dealer
    46        and, for example, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and
    47        Fisheries.  There has to be an allegation defamatory of
    48        McDonald's which, by reference to the evidence of
    49        Dr. Dealer, these Defendants are in a position to justify.
    50 
    51        My Lord, just in passing, I will not read it to your 
    52        Lordship but I do invite your Lordship to give a ruling on 
    53        this question and, therefore, I remind your Lordship that
    54        your Lordship accepted without need to refer to the New
    55        Zealand case of Crush v. The New Zealand Broadcasting
    56        Corporation, Your Lordship accepted without any difficulty
    57        the proposition that justification of a non-defamatory
    58        meaning is irrelevant and inadmissible on 3rd November 1993
    59        at page 13, letters A to D.
    60