New Zealand First Leader, Rt Hon Winston Peters today described the granting of $600,000 by the Health Research Council to Canterbury University doctors, Annie Potts, Tiina Vares and others, to study the ‘implications of prosexual pharmaceutical use’, as “evidence of an irresponsible squandering of taxpayers funds”.

“Every evening our television news provides us with examples of people in serious distress because they are unable to receive the basic health treatment they so desperately need,” Mr Peters said.

“Whilst accepting that for a small number of people the emotional and sexual effects of viagra may be of more than passing interest, for the vast majority of New Zealanders, the need to access basic health care is of far greater importance. If we have now found such large sums of taxpayer funds to finance this sort of research, surely the more mainstream issues such as cancer research, child illnesses, or combating the growing Aids epidemic, would be of more immediate benefit and for a far greater number of New Zealanders,” Mr Peters suggested.

“If doctors wish to pursue academic initiatives such as the implications of prosexual pharmaceutical use, let them fund it themselves or seek funding from the drug manufacturers. We should not be using our meagre health dollars on such issues, while we cannot meet the basic health needs of our communities first,” concluded Mr Peters.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>