22 December 2004

New Zealand Becoming A Toothless Society

New Zealand First spokesperson for health Barbara Stewart is criticising the Government for not acting sooner to rescue the appalling state of our school dental service.

It is outrageous that the number of children having dental surgery under general anaesthetic because their teeth are so decayed has quadrupled in the last ten years, with reports of children as young as four having up to eight teeth removed, said Mrs Stewart.

The Minister of Health has known about this for some time and only now has she decided to ask each DHB to produce a report on the dental service in the region.

This is another case where the Minister is fobbing off her responsibility to already pressured DHBs.

We are fast becoming a toothless nation due to the lack of leadership by this Mrs King.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

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>>