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

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