Dear Health Sponsorship Council

Positive Men has been established to promote the use of positive imagery of men and masculinity in the media in Aotearoa New Zealand. For far too long men have been demonised and portrayed as abusers. A rare positive portrayal was going to occur when All Black Piri Weepu was going to be shown feeding his daughter in a Health Sponsorship Council anti smoking advertisement, but the Council was bullied by breastfeeding advocates La Leche League and the Midwifery Council into censoring this footage.

We argue this was outrageous. We all know breast is better than bottle. We probably even know it better than it is bad to smoke. However we rarely see or hear any positive portrayals of men and we argue the benefits of retaining the censored footage of Piri feeding his daughter more than outweighs any potential risk.

We call on the Health Sponsorship Council to reinstate the censored footage into its advertisements.

Yours faithfully

Darryl Ward
Spokesperson of Positive Men

Go here to join Positive Men: https://www.facebook.com/groups/246338658780119/

Go here to send your own message to the Health Sponsorship Council: http://hsc.org.nz/contact-us-feedback