Dunne ignores request

Dear Editor

The Ministry of Health’s tender document for fluoridation promotion, using taxpayer money, unnecessarily, suggests that the ministry has lost it’s competence.
In a letter (24 September, 2009) Associate Minister of Health, Peter Dunne, made statements to me I believed incorrect.
I asked him to confirm his statements. He replied ignoring this request.
I wrote again – twice.
Eventually his secretary informed me that the minister would not be responding to future letters.
Mr Dunne’s media release of the attack on the Far North District Council for deciding to end fluoridation, published in several daily newspapers throughout New Zealand (NZ), suggests that he is an ‘expert’ on fluoridation yet he could not back up his own statements.
The MOH’s document is seeking a taskforce to push for 70% of fluoridation in NZ; to monitor and report on major anti-fluoride websites; be trained on how to respond to the media; advise local authorities on alternative ways to address fluoridation; monitor the environment in which water fluoridation is publicly discussed and decisions made by public bodies, etc. (18 pages) I thought NZ was supposed to be a democratic country – not be spied on!!!!!


Imelda Hitchcock