Agreed that an association would be worthy of serious consideration as causal if there was a gradient with distance within the three areas in Teeside (called A, B, C) and if the three areas together had a higher rate than a fourth area some 20 miles distant in the City of Sunderland (called S).
Values that empirical data is more reliable than the testimony of local people and that an epidemiological approach would be more pertinent than a toxicological one.