With all the uproar in Korea about how US beef is going to kill them, I find it interesting that on the front page of KBS they have an article on what is really going to kill Koreans:
A medical professor said Thursday that more than one million Koreans have died of smoking-related diseases since 1981.
In a recent study, Jee Sun-ha, professor of epidemiology and health promotion at the Graduate School of Public Health at Yonsei University, said that around 913-thousand Koreans died of smoking-related diseases between 1981 and 2007.
He estimated that the number had exceeded the one million mark this year.
Compared to non-smokers, men who smoke are found to be six and a half times more likely to have laryngeal cancer, four-point-six times more likely to have lung cancer, one-point-seven times more likely to have heart diseases, and one-point-six times more likely to suffer a stroke.
Female smokers had four-point-two times higher risk of getting ovarian cancer and other diseases. [KBS Global]
If you do the math on this that means over 37,000 Koreans die every year from smoking related diseases which comes out to 101 Koreans dieing every day from smoking. Some how I don’t see Koreans demanding the end to the selling of killer cigarettes in Korea like they are demanding of US beef.
Even funnier is that on the front page of the Chosun Ilbo is a story about how the Avian Bird Flu has reached Seoul:
The cause of the virulent strain of bird flu which broke out at an aviary run by the Gwangjin District Office in eastern Seoul is still unknown.
Tests were conducted on a pheasant dealer’s shop in the Moran Market in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province and a poultry farm which were suspected by the Seoul city government and the Gwangjin District Office as possible sources of the disease. But the tests proved negative.
Officials from the Seoul city government and the Gwangjin District Office on Wednesday captured wild ducks living in the lake of Konkuk University campus, which is suspected as another possible source of the disease. The lake is located about 450 m from the infected aviary. The two authorities will send captured wild ducks to a lab for tests.
If the ducks turn out to be the source of the disease, there is a high chance that other wild birds in the vicinity have already been infected. This will make it all the more difficult to trace the cause of the disease and prevent its spread. [Chosun Ilbo]
So does anyone expect scaremongering surrounding the Avian Bird Flu start? I am also wondering if the Korean media is trying sublimely deliver a message to the Korean public by publishing these stories of how ridiculous the whole US beef issue is?
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RE: Smoking Korans.
Thank god for tobacco.
RE: Avian flu.
Why don’t Koreans feed the ducks kimuchi? According to top Korean doctors and scientists Kimuchi is a cure-all.
As far as the Korean media using subliminal messages, I don’t think so.
I do think we’ve firmly established that the US Beef issue is 100% political. Friggin idiot commies. It’s a shame that the lemming-like qualities of the typical chip saram allows them to be influenced by anything on TV, the WWW, and in the paper. Whatever. I’m eating good thanks to US Beef at the Osan Commissary.
If 100% political you mean its 100% anti-American. Then yes this is proven.
“Friggin idiot commies. ”
Dave you are you still living in the 70’s? This issue boils down to the fact that they hate the USA. The EU-Korea FTA will sail through with the usual smattering of finger cutting and self immolation. But NOTHING like the anti-USA hatred that Koreans have. This is true from children to old women.