Letters: Singing over the haka not disrespectful

Fans singing to drown out the All Blacks' haka was rousing, says a reader. Photo / Getty Images

On viewing the All Blacks v England game at Twickernam, I listened to the British rugby fans singing their hearts out to drown the All Blacks haka but was astonished to hear a NZ commentator question whether that was "respectful".

In my opinion, and I accept that I may be a minority in my thinking, I thought their song was rousing and a reciprocal challenge to the haka.

It is an anathema to me that any international team opposing the All Blacks has to remain mute and respectful in the face of what in my opinion is a violent, intimidating war dance.

I lived for sport in my youth, and was always encouraged to try to win, but to understand that I was involved in a sporting game not war.

Maureen J Anderson
Pyes Pa

Poor teeth

Re Peter Williams (Opinion, November 10).

According to Williams, lazy parenting and the lack of fluoride in Tauranga water caused poor teeth.

Neither is correct. Decades of astute sugar marketing is the cause compounded by manipulated parental nutritional ignorance.

Dental decay is not a fluoride deficiency disease as the indigent Māori population had no decay prior to adopting foods of commerce based on sugar and white flour.

However, anyone believing that fluoride prevents decay need only drink tea or use fluoridated toothpaste.

Purchasing and maintaining machinery to deliberately add fluoride to municipal water is absurd when there is more fluoride in a single supermarket teabag than in a litre of fluoridated water.

So, have a cup of Bells or Choysa but not too many or eventually undiagnosed skeletal fluorosis may present as arthritis. The latter costs this country billions of dollars a year.

That said, inappropriate school dental instructions in the 50-70s resulted by 1968, in an average of 16 amalgam fillings placed in the "murder houses".

The legacy of that practice is that the current elderly now need extensive and expensive restorative work as those fillings break down.

That ought to be subsidised.

ME Godfrey
Tauranga