A New Threat to Whales: Snake-Oil Salesmen (I have dementia and I'm not buying or eating this)

[Omaha Steve]

In a bid to boost sales, a Japanese company is claiming that whale meat can fight dementia and other health problems.




(Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)
JUL 1, 2015John R. Platt covers the environment, technology, philanthropy, and more for Scientific American, Conservation, Lion, and other publications.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/07/01/new-threat-whales-snake-oil-salesmen-0?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-07-01

A Japanese company wants to turn whale meat into the next rhino horn.

Just as unscrupulous dealers in China and Vietnam started making unsubstantiated claims a decade ago that rhino horn could cure cancer and hangovers, Japan’s Kyodo Senpaku is now marketing Icelandic whale meat as a way to treat dementia and fatigue.
The move comes in response to plummeting demand for whale meat in Japan. Consumers there now eat 4,000 to 5,000 tons of whale meat a year, down from 200,000 tons in the 1960s. About half of this year’s imports by Kyodo Senpaku will come from Iceland, one of the few countries killing whales under the guise of “scientific research.”

A spokesperson for Kyodo Senpaku told The Japan Times that the attempt to market whale meat as a curative “may help not only to maintain demand for whale meat but also to lower health care costs.”

A spokesperson for Kyodo Senpaku told The Japan Times that the attempt to market whale meat as a curative “may help not only to maintain demand for whale meat but also to lower health care costs.”

FULL story at link.