In addition, Prof. Lin did not conduct any specific discussion in his opinion on the question of the causal connection in its narrow sense – a connection between a certain exposure to a specific substance and a specific disease [p. 164].
- The Supreme Court, in its judgment on the appeal, also ruled regarding the thesis raised by Lin (and also within the framework of this motion for approval), inter alia, as follows:
The fishermen also raised a thesis similar to that raised by Prof. Hod in the divers' lawsuit, according to which it is sufficient that a person who comes into contact with a substance known to be carcinogenic has developed some kind of cancer, in order to establish a causal link between the exposure and the disease. Thus, Prof. Lin, one of the experts on behalf of the fishermen, argued that as far as he is concerned, every resident of Haifa who has developed cancer has a causal connection between his illness and the drinking water he drank, since the drinking water also contains substances that are known to be carcinogenic, and "there is a high probability that they participated in the creation of a sufficient causal link. That's what I'm saying, I confirm you, I agree with you, a high probability is over 51%" (p. 13,844 of the transcript).
The trial court referred to Prof. Lin's theory in its judgment when it said:
... And after the errors in the database of the plaintiffs' experts' opinions were clarified, the plaintiffs abandoned the field of epidemiology and sought to base the last and fourth opinion of Prof. Lin (the reply) on what Prof. Lin called 'qualitative epidemiology'. However, as Prof. Lin's research also showed, epidemiology deals with assessing the risk of contracting diseases and by its very nature is quantitative science. It has not been proven that there is an accepted theory of qualitative epidemiology in the scientific world" (p. 40 of the judgment) [page 25, paragraph 20].
Prof. Lin, the expert on behalf of the fishermen, argued that even if a person smoked 20 cigarettes a day for 40 years and developed lung cancer, if he had been in Kishon for one day in his life, there is a causal link between his illness and his exposure to Kishon waters and not to smoking (pp. 13,551-13,552 of the transcript). This claim is ironic, to say the least, and when we mention smoking, we will tell you that during the course of the investigation of the claims, it became clear that a significant part of the fishermen were smokers, and even heavy smokers [page 26, paragraph 20].