Seniors urged to eat Fukushima rice to help farmers, protect young people

[kristopher]

Seniors urged to eat Fukushima rice to help farmers, protect young people
By MINORU MATSUTANI Staff writer

A Tokyo senior is waging an individual effort to get elderly people to eat rice grown in Fukushima Prefecture to help local farmers struggling with rumors that their crops are radioactive, and to make sure the grain isn't consumed by more vulnerable younger generations.

Consumers have shunned Fukushima rice due to radiation fears stemming from the triple-meltdown crisis that started last March at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant.

"The elderly must eat Fukushima rice," Hino resident Hidekazu Hirai, 68, told The Japan Times on Monday. Compared with young people, the elderly are believed less prone to the harmful effects of radiation...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120320a9.html

[bluecoat_fan]

1. "the elderly are believed less prone to the harmful effects of radiation"

This makes me sick!

[izquierdista]

3. It is true

It's common knowledge in the area of health physics that time is an important parameter of radiation exposure. That's why those who aren't going to be around in another 30 or 40 years are less prone to the effects. They have more immediate problems, like their diabetes or emphysema or heart disease which is going to kill them.

There's no tactful way to put it, because we all die sometime.

[bluecoat_fan]

5. "are less prone to the effects" => some are prone to the effects.

Killing some people to save the economy is WRONG!

[izquierdista]

6. Think of it as a preview of the future

When there is not enough food to go around, and the rice with low radiation is given to the children, while grandma and grandpa get the glow-in-the-dark bowls.

Not a pleasant picture and makes me glad I won't live to see the worst of it.

[bluecoat_fan]

7. But there is enough rice to go around (in Japan) today.

This is about saving TEPCO money from not having to pay the farmers and not about world food shortages.

[get the red out]

2. Is that anything like

Leaving Grandpa out on the ice floe and moving on?

I'll tell my Mom this story the next time she complains about the very good food served in her assisted living residence.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Fukushima rice with some baked fish from Love Canal.

Avoid the indignities and ravages of old age with this diet . . . .

While I appreciate the lack of deception, it's painfully blatant, asking seniors to sacrifice their lives for another demographic.l

[MisterP]

8. that's what Herman Kahn said, inspiring Dr. Strangelove