Brave Move in Election Year

It is brave of Prime Minister Helen Clark’s agency Pharmac to withdraw another medicine from the New Zealand people during an election year (April 16-17).

Ventolin inhalers are the best way to deliver vital medication to asthmatics and have been for more than 25 years.

To replace this medicine with one that is inferior is dangerous. New Zealand shouldn’t be a dumping ground for cheap medicine.

More than 600,000 asthmatics live in New Zealand and those using Ventolin will no doubt take a dim view of the beancounters at Pharmac and the Labour Government with its careless, Third World approach to medication.

Using a cheap asthma inhaler puts people at a higher risk than our prime minister was in during her mid-flight door-latch incident.

Next time Miss Clark has a near-death experience, she should spare a thought for the asthmatics she and her Government are endangering with their policies toward cheap medicine.

SCOTT KENNEDY

Breaker Bay

(Abridged)