That’s not the point. If you purchase private medical insurance, you are still required to also buy into public health via your taxes. There is no opt-out provision. One ends up paying for one’s healthcare twice.

Answer me this: If public healthcare is so damn good, why does private healthcare bother to exist at all? How can private healthcare compete with “free”?

Bill.

The fact that I can’t afford it because the government is taxing me so high to pay for everyone else’s health insurance.

Then get a better job with better pay!

The original push to iodised salt was because NZ soils are iodine poor, thus NZ diets were iodine poor. Sadly, since then, salt is added in excessive quantities to manufactured food, and it isn’t iodised salt.

The fact that I can’t afford it because the government is taxing me so high to pay for everyone else’s health insurance.

“Bread manufacturers have until September 2009 to switch to using iodised salt. That gives them time to make changes to manufacturing and labelling and it will allow the salt industry time to increase the production of iodised salt.”

http://www.beehive.govt.nz/feature/mandatory+iodine+fortification

The thing that most annoys me is that the reason people ended up getting less iodine is the government pushing propaganda against salt. People ate less salt – therefore less iodine and the government has to force the iodine on them in other ways. The law of unintended consequences working against the left yet again.

The root of this problem is ACC and socialised health – if we got rid of both of those the government would no longer benefit (financially) from trying to force us to be healthy.

Actually it doesn’t show that. Bit of background: in NZ we have a low amount of folate in our diet – 250 mcg when the recommended amount daily is 400 mcg. This does pose the question that if a policy is introduced to increase this by adding to bread (much as you get products with added vitamin C or oxidants voluntarily on sale) that this would be an easy strategy to raise the overall levels which could also help catch the at risk groups in the population that actually need the supplement.

There has been increasing interest in investigating whether increased supplementation above the amounts generally thought necessary in the diet would increase health benefits of a nutrient. In these studies, like the folic acid/prostate they supplemented with much more that 400 mcg – actually at 1 mg and then you could add in whatever the person took in with diet on top of that. With the bowel cancer what was being looked at was polyps which may become cancerous, and again in the context of supplementation way above what is needed in the diet. There was increased growth. All this really says to me is that more is not better, not that fortifying foods to get nearer the recommended amount is going to cause health problems. There doesn’t appear to be a health risk at normal levels or below that I’ve been able to find. Further folate is the natural form of the B vitamin, folic acid is the synthetic. In this case, it’s actually the synthetic that is absorbed some 50% or more better due to folate having a more complex structure which must be broken down and absorbed before being used by the body.

I’m fairly agnostic about whether they do it or not, but either way supplementation is required for some groups and it seems that we could all do with increasing average intake of this nutrient.

na you dont get it… these jokers dont read scientific things. They just spout out their ideological crap all day.

Someone – Told them – that a paper said – that itll give you Colon cancer!! run for the hills.

“But new research shows folic acid may cause an increase in colon cancer cases. And another study suggests it may cause colon cancer to grow faster.”

I’d like the references. The first study I suspect you are referring was not able to demonstrate a link between folate use and colon cancer protection at double the recommended dose. I cannot find the second source but would be eager to critique it.

By way of contrast the reference below shows an increase colon cancer risk in folate deficiency.

Journal reference:

1. Duthie et al. The Response of Human Colonocytes to Folate Deficiency in Vitro: Functional and Proteomic Analyses. Journal of Proteome Research, 2008; 7 (8): 3254 DOI: 10.1021/pr700751y

Oh DPF – You have a proclivity to label any public health effort akin to the “Unfortunate Experiment”. Not only does this reflect your lack of knowledge in the area which feeds your need to sensationalise subjects like many a newsprint whore but it is depressingly boring.

Seen any laws passed under urgency recently? open ur eyes, spare us that blind drivel.

Your appeal to some form of foreign authority is a waste of time. I dont care who determines the “democracy ratings” and I dont need some silly scoring system to confirm what i have seen with my own two eyes.

I do know that Labours efforts through the EFA to restrict democratic involvement of a big swathe of the population is probably the biggest step away from democracy that New Zealand has ever taken. They passed laws under urgency, when nothing was really urgent. They maintained corrupt politicians to keep their slimy grasp on power.

If Helen Clark could have, she would have declared herself President for life.

Heres an interesting article – it examines 6 different countries respective folic-acid programmes/policies.

Lawrence MA et al (2009) Examination of selected national policies towards mandatory folic acid fortification. Nutrition Reviews vol 67 (1) S73-S78

or are you too blinded by ideology? The one that continues to discredit science and research.
- You’ll find that this article looks at the good and bad of the folic acid policies.

Back to Folate, classic command and control issue. You there, yes you, you won’t take your medicine ? Bad person, as punishment, ALL of you must take the medicine. What, you claim it will make you sick, don’t be foolish, WE know best, do what you’re told.

Folate is useful for pregnant women, and has no positives and some negatives for everyone else in the population. Folate levels are usually more than adequate for people on a “normal” healthy diet. Why in the hell would any sane person think this was a

Where do you get your information about Big Macs being a good source of folic acid?

What state monopoly?

I visit a GP in private practice.

I buy my drugs from a privately owned pharmacy.

IF I was so inclined, I could also seek treatment from a bunch of other private practitioners in areas such as herbalism, homeopathy, reiki, etc.

Errr … you are stopped from buying private health insurance by what, exactly?