Woman on controversial poster a Cook Islander

By TONY GEE

An elderly woman whose cropped photograph appears on a "culturally unsafe" meningococcal B vaccine campaign poster targeted at Maori is, in fact, a Cook Islander.

Northland Health this week urged all GPs in the region not to display the Maori version of the poster in the vaccination campaign.

The image of the woman with her face cropped across her eyebrow "could be inappropriate for a Northland audience", Northland Health said.

Whangarei MP Phil Heatley, who said on Wednesday he was appalled at the "politically correct censorship" that would not protect Northland children against the disease, claimed yesterday that health officials had been unable to get the posters right because the "kuia" was a Pacific Islander.

But Northland Health said yesterday it always knew the woman in both the Maori and English poster versions was a Cook Islander.

Kim Tito, Northland Health general manager for Maori health, said the visual impact remained the same.

"It is not acceptable to some and so our concerns in terms of its distribution in Northland remain."

On November 22 Northland GPs will start vaccinating 11,000 children aged between six months and five years.