It’s child abuse actually
Rob Beaglehole reckons that food and beverage manufacturers are to blame for rotten children’s teeth.
He is wrong, it is the parents fault.
The soft drinks industry has hit back at claims that its products are to blame for a rise in the number of toddlers needing to have rotten teeth pulled out.
Dentist and veteran anti-sugar lobbyist Rob Beaglehole said earlier this week that cavities in children’s teeth were on the rise, and some as young as 18 months were having multiple rotten teeth pulled out after parents fed them soft drinks through sipper bottles, and chocolate biscuits as bedtime treats.
“The issue of young children with rotten teeth is one of poor parenting. No more and no less,” Kerry Tyack, executive director of the New Zealand Beverage Council said.
The council represents soft drink giants Coca-Cola and Frucor, as well as boutique manufacturers such as Phoenix.
Tyack said parents should be “in complete control” of what young children ate and drank, and said it was “a complete evasion of parental responsibility to shift the blame for the state of these children’s teeth onto the manufacturers of products which should, after all, be consumed as treats or in moderation”.
“It’s not the products. It’s the decision to use them inappropriately.” Read more »

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.
They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.
He is fearless in his pursuit of a story.
Love him or loathe him, you can’t ignore him.
To read Cam’s previous articles click on his name in blue.