Because the threat of reheated rice is largely overblown. For starters, it’s not the reheating that’s the problem, but the storage. Rice can carry a bacterial spore for a particular species whose name I forget. Spores are really durable and can survive the initial cooking process. If you then leave the rice out for a while, the spores can reactivate and begin to grow colonies of bacteria. If you reheat it and then leave it out for a while again, you’re increasing the temperature of the rice to a point that doesn’t cook the bacteria, but only lets them grow faster for a bit (as bacteria like warmth). It’s not really reheated rice that’s the issue, it’s old rice – reheating just reduces the time necessary for these bacterial colonies to grow to sizes where they might cause a bit of tummy trouble.
But this issue isn’t a huge one, hence why rice cookers are perfectly happy keeping a batch of rice warm for hours. They create the ideal conditions for bacterial growth, but still don’t cause problems unless you’ve left it on for half a day or more. And as for sushi, you’re eating raw meats and fish – rice should be the least of your health concerns on that front.
If you leave cooked rice out at room temperature for several hours the bacteria starts to grow. That’s the only situation in which you wouldn’t want to eat it, reheated or not. If you cook it and refrigerate/freeze it soon after, it’s safe to reheat later because you never gave the bacteria enough time to grow.
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