21 October, 2004

Nandor backs mandatory warnings on alcohol containers

Green Party MP, Nandor Tanczos today welcomed the Health Select Committee report into foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), saying that the Green Party has long advocated that health warnings on alcohol containers should be mandatory.

The report was prompted by the petition of Shirley Anne Winikerei which asked FAS to be made a notifiable disease. It makes a number of recommendations, including mandatory warnings on all types of alcoholic containers to remind women of the dangers of drinking alcohol while pregnant.

"I have personally seen the effects of foetal alcohol syndrome," said Nandor, the Green Drug Policy spokesperson. "It is a terrible but preventable birth defect that is largely unacknowledged in society."

Nandor said that the report is timely given the recently published comments by Massey University's Associate Professor Kathy Kitson of the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health, stating that there is no safe level of drinking while pregnant.

"Professor Kitson says abstinence is the only way to protect against FAS. That will be news to most New Zealanders, but warnings on containers should help get that important message across."

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>>