Thursday, September 13, 2012

#Radioactive Japan: Japanese Government to Give Anti-Baseless Rumor Seminars to "Educate" Mothers of Young Children


Oh yes, and bamboo spears could down a B-29 bomber, because it's all in your mind, it's all how you think.

From NHK News (part, link won't last since it's NHK; 9/14/2012):

原発事故による食品への風評被害と、悪質商法による高齢者被害の2つを消費者問題の重点項目として、政府は風評被害を防ぐための集会を開いたり、高齢者に注意を呼びかける電話をかけたりして対策を強化していくことになりました。

The national government has come up with the two important consumer issues to focus on: damage on food industries due to baseless rumors because of the nuclear accident, and businesses that aim to defraud senior citizens. Countermeasures will include hosting meetings to prevent baseless rumors and making phone calls to senior citizens to be careful.

14日の会議で政府がまとめた「消費者安心アクションプラン」の原案によりますと、原発事故による食品への風評被害と悪質商法などによる高齢者の被害を、集中的に対策に取り組む消費者問題の重点項目に挙げました。

In the meeting on September 14, the national government compiled the base plan for "Consumer Feeling Safe Action Plan" which identified baseless rumor damage on food due to the nuclear accident and harm to senior citizens from fraudulent business practices as priority issues.

各省庁などが協力して対策に取り組むことも打ち出していて、風評被害の対策としては幼稚園や保育園など全国の2000か所で、母親などを対象に放射性物質の食品への影響を正しく理解してもらうミニ集会を開きます。

The plan calls for inter-ministry cooperation in implementing the countermeasures. As one of such measures to counter baseless rumors, the government will hold small meetings at 2,000 kindergartens and nursery schools throughout Japan for mothers to come and correctly understand the effect of radioactive materials on food.

また、こうした集会の講師となれるよう各地で研修会を開き保健師や栄養士などに参加してもらいます。

To train the instructors for such meetings, the government will host seminars throughout Japan for the public health nurses and dieticians to attend.


As part of this new government initiative, no doubt, there is a newly printed pamphlet from the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Food Safety Commission of the Cabinet Office, and Consumer Affairs Agency, declaring (in the left column in the image below):

If you keep eating food that test below the safety limit, it is safe.


The opening word of this pamphlet has the hallmark of having been created by one of the two largest ad agencies that routinely get government contracts. All in hiragana, it says (in the right column, in red circle I added):

Please let us talk to you, again. あらためておはなしさせてください



Ugggh. This I suspect is the "inter-ministry cooperation" and this will be used as handouts at the meetings to be held in kindergartens and nursery schools throughout Japan.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's kind of ironic that the government intends to educate the mothers when, in fact, the mothers are on the whole more informed than the government appears to be. Perhaps the mothers should be called on to educate the government to stop them from believing their "baseless truth."

Anonymous said...

It's not ironic, because the purpose of "education" is and always has been to brainwash people with what they want us to think.

Contrary to popular belief, "education" has never been about empowering people with necessary knowledge that could save their lives and improve society.

I know this firsthand. Much of the important knowledge that I, my parents and my friends have was not taught by school, but from researching it ourselves or pooling information between us. Hardly anything I learned from school was ever put to use, or I had already known far better by the time it was taught to me.

Anonymous said...

It's good if they organize seminars at schools and kindergartens; excellent chance to distribute alternative information material.
Beppe

Anonymous said...

Blatant lie on the first page of the pamphlet: "if you eat food below the current government limits you are below the 1mSv limit set by international institutions" (and hence safe). This is true only if you assume zero external dose; if you live in Fukudhima city you are already above that limit. Same holds for Tokyo, to a lesser extent.
Beppe

Anonymous said...

NHK's intent with its "reporting" has at least been made sufficiently clear: four of six sentences contain the words "baseless rumors."
*mscharisma*

Anonymous said...

While it may be true that eating food with these very low levels of cesium is unlikely to cause harm, this disgusting propaganda campaign attempts to erase from people’s minds the conclusion that they would come to naturally: that if given a choice, it is better to eat food with no radioisotopes than the food with any amount of radioisotopes in it – no matter how low. This propaganda attempts to shift responsibility for compensation from the guilty parties to the Japanese citizen. TEPCO and their overseers, not food consumers, are responsible for compensating food producers for their losses, whether the losses were from real contamination or damage to reputation.

Anonymous said...

"baseless rumors"
Repeat after Edano
There is no "immediate" harm to human health.

That does not apply to the immediate cellular damage being done. Waving a wand and declaring that because the nearby population did not die from acute radiation poisoning does not mean there was no "immediate" harm to human health.
The debate carries on endlessly.
Plant,insect,and bird mutations. Bioaccumulation of radioactive elements in seafood, vegetables and dairy.
It has been over 18 months now. How much radioactive lunch is too much ? Please have seminars and let the parents know.

Here in the US the nuclear industry and ANS also understand the importance of the "mother vote" and educating children.
Clean air. Cute girls. Fast cars.
No problems

http://www2.newsadvance.com/news/2012/sep/04/indy-car-driver-talks-students-about-nuclear-power-ar-2178586/

Anonymous said...

It may be true that eating food at 100 Bq/kg of cesium contamination is unlikely to cause harm... but we do not know -- it might be false too.
Especially because no other isotope is being measured (Sr, Pu, anyone?) so those 100 Bq are actually more.
And because most optimistic estimates place children tolerability at some 1/3 the adults', so for children those 100 are like 300.
And because we are not counting the external dose at all.
So, after all, current tolerability levels are still way too high and they ARE likely to cause harm.
Beppe

Anonymous said...

Playing Russian Roulette is unlikely to cause harm, unless you happen to get the bullet.

I really don't buy into how safety standards rely so heavily on chance of occurrence. If there's a chance of danger, it's not "safe". What they refer to as "safe" is more like "relatively safe, if you're lucky". But if they were to put it that way, people wouldn't be happy.

If you so much as point out actual dangers, people start crying about "fear-mongering", "conspiracy theorist nutters" and accusing each other of being cowardly "chickens" and "spreading baseless rumors". Absolutely pathetic.

Anonymous said...

@ Anon September 14, 2012 6:22 AM

Indy car driver and nuclear Shill Simona de Silvestro loves to tell children her home country of Switzerland gets 40% of their power from nuclear BUT she neglects to mention after Fukushima the Swiss government decided to abandon plans to build new nuclear reactors and the last operating units will go offline in 2034.

wealth said...

Ionizing radiation will and does create holes in your body-better to try to do without radioactive contamination....

Anonymous said...

it's all in your mind the Radiation WILL, you will be confused, have trouble processing, need to be shown things in order to learn, disoriented while driving car & so on.

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