Sunday, December 18, 2011

#Radiation in Japan: Saitama Forces School Children to Gargle with Sayama Tea to Prevent Flu

The "cold shutdown/accident is over" declaration by PM Noda on December 16 must have been a signal that unleashed the cold shutdown of intelligence in many parts of Japan. Here's one from Saitama Prefecture.

Sayama City, known for its "Sayama-cha" brand green tea, has been suffering as high levels of radioactive cesium continue to be detected from its teas. As if to help the city and dispel "baseless rumors" that are scaring the consumers from buying Sayama tea, Saitama Prefecture has just started forcing school children to gargle with powdered Sayama tea as an effort to instill good behavior in preventing cold and flu.

Problem: radioactive cesium has been detected from green tea grown in Sayama, some exceeding the national provisional limit of 500 becquerels/kg by a wide margin. In fact, it is rare to find Sayama tea without any radioactive cesium.

The latest testing done by Saitama Prefecture shows continued detection of radioactive cesium from almost all teas grown in Sayama.

Nonetheless, parents of the children who goes to school in Saitama received the notice like this:

It says:
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Gargling with Sayama-cha

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in the matter of educating our children. It is the time of the year again to do the gargling using Sayama tea to prevent influenza, and the powdered tea has been distributed [to the school]. Catechin, one of the main ingredients in green tea is said to prohibit the influenza virus. Therefore, our school will conduct "Let's gargle with Sayama tea" event as follows. We ask for your understanding and cooperation.

As an aside, the powdered Sayama tea distributed this time has been tested at a testing laboratory and confirmed safe.

1. Purpose of "Let's gargle with Sayama tea"

By doing the gargling using Sayama tea every day, to prevent the influenza infection, to form a desirable health habit, and to have a healthy, cheerful school life.

2. How to "Gargle with Sayama tea"

1) All children must each bring a cup to school to be kept in the classrooms: The cups are to be kept inside bags that children will bring, and children are to take the cups home over the weekend, wash them well, and bring them back to school the following week.

2) Each classroom is to have a supply of powdered Sayama tea: The classroom teachers are responsible for the storage and safe keeping of the tea.

3) All children will continue to gargle with Sayama tea once a day: After the PE classes and playing outside, children are supposed to dissolve powdered Sayama tea with tap water to make the solution, and gargle.

3. Please have ready:

A cup for gargling (cup made of plastics so that it doesn't easily break)
A bag to put the cup in.

"Let's gargle with Sayama tea" will start on Thursday December 15. We apologize for any inconvenience, but please have the cup and the bag ready by then.

===========================

The whole thing reads like an extremely cynical joke.

"To form a healthy habit" with radioactive cesium tea powder?

"Apologize for inconvenience" of being party to subject their children to the known radioactive risk?

And insistence on tap water. Many public schools in Japan only allow tap water for drinking, for educational purposes. It was fine until March 11.

A dumb bomb exploded over Japan, for sure. Or maybe this is one of the effect of radiation exposure. I wonder what the parents did in Saitama Prefecture.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

"As an aside, the powdered Sayama tea distributed this time has been tested at a testing laboratory and confirmed safe."

Note the "this time" in the sentence. So..LAST TIME it was not tested. How can school administrators subject the children to a possible cancer causing substance. Guess they will feel bad AFTER the kids get sick, and excuse it because the GOVERNMENT said it was okay. I hope they can sleep at night..wonder if they are drinking the same tea powder.

Anonymous said...

This remimds of the story I saw yesterday re drying tofu up in Fukushima city. Apparently some people do believe exactly what the government says.

This thing about gargling with the tea is ridiculous. They know it all contains cesium. Why is this okay now?

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Why? Because the cold shutdown has been achieved and the accident is over. Sheer will-power will conquer radiation, no problem.

Anonymous said...

Surreal

Anonymous said...

Why should the parents listen to the government when they have proven over and over to be blatantly lying ?. Here the government are contributing to organised genocide of the children just for the sake of their economy ?. How sick is that?.

They need to value life over ANYTHING else like normal humans, or else they are as good as insects. It is such a shame that an advanced race can be manipulated into such stupidity. The people needs to understand that they are people and not sheep!.

Anonymous said...

AGENDA 21

Anonymous said...

On the link posted there is one type of tea that has no radionuclides detected in it... what kind of tea is that?

Anonymous said...

The tea showing zero iodine or cesium is "Sayama Shincha".

Anonymous said...

Your post is mentioned in mine:

http://survivaljapan.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/safe-food-scarcity

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@survivaljapan, thanks for linking. It seems this is not at one particular school but a whole bunch of them if not all of Saitama public schools. Parents in Shizuoka are saying on twitter that Shizuoka Prefecture does the same every year, radioactive or not.

citizenperth said...

Anonymous said...
"As an aside, the powdered Sayama tea distributed this time has been tested at a testing laboratory and confirmed safe."

Note the "this time" in the sentence. So..LAST TIME it was not tested. How can school administrators subject the children to a possible cancer causing substance. Guess they will feel bad AFTER the kids get sick, and excuse it because the GOVERNMENT said it was okay. I hope they can sleep at night..wonder if they are drinking the same tea powder.

yeah.. they test 1 sample until they find one that is "all good" no doubt.... how often have they done that to date?.. enought to endanger the children????

Anonymous said...

"Note the "this time" in the sentence. So..LAST TIME it was not tested."

Yeah. Because last time was last year. 4 Month before the nuclear accident... Don't loose your brains, guys.

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