Dept to pay for advertisements

Press, 3 December 1985, Page 3

Dept to pay for advertisements

PA Wellington The Health Department has agreed to run paid advertisements saying that the Tommee Tippee brand of babies’ teats and soothers complies with the New Zealand safety standard. Last month the department asked Jackel International, the Lower Hutt company which markets Tommee Tippee products in New Zealand, to withdraw three teats and soothers from the market.

However, the managing director of Jackel, Mr Rick Curtis, said yesterday that the company had had tests all along which showed that its products met New Zealand standards. Recent tests by overseas laboratories confirmed this.

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Health Department said last Friday that contrary to the earlier D.S.I.R. tests, Tommee Tippee and Nuk Latex teats and soothers did not contain nitrosamine levels above those recommended by the Food Standards Committee. The Director-General of Health, Dr Ron Barker, had asked for the products to be withdrawn from the market in a privileged statement issued on October 17. Mr Curtis said that in the meantime his company had suffered commercial damage, with sales being completely stopped. Sales of other products had also

been affected, Mr Curtis said.

As part of an agreement with the Health Department over the issue, the department had agreed to run paid advertisements on both television channels, in 25 metropolitan daily newspapers and on 33 commercial radio stations, he said.