Three days to eat my way through Taipei

It’s spring break here in Japan.  Schools are out in Narashino until next week.  I’m taking a couple of days off of work for a trip to Taiwan’s capital, Taipei; I may not be updating while I’m away.  Our non-refundable travel plan was finalized before the mega-quake, so it’s 勿体無い. 

This trip is food-centric.  I’m a big fan of Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman (飲食男女鵜).  I’ll finally get to try the Grand Hotel’s dim sum (日本語で点心という), and maybe I’ll even find the courage to try some stinky tofu at one of the night markets.  

In all likelihood, we’ll be scanned for radioactivity upon arrival in Taipei.  

That should make for a good story.  

頑張れ,ニッポン！

To call what's happening in Japan a "terrible tragedy" is vague.

The death toll from this disaster continues to rise, toppling 11000 with over 16,000 people still missing. Hundreds of thousands of people are still homeless, and the nuclear crisis is still touch-and-go, with radiation levels too high to work for long in several places. One body (male) was found 5km from Daichi. Radiation levels were two high to collect the corpse without first decontaminating the body. There are photos of mass funerals taking place and they simply don’t have enough caskets. Here in Narashino, we’re hundreds of kilometers away from these scenes and even though life is more or less back to normal, one need only turn on the television or glance at the newspaper headlines to be flooded with emotion. Everyone is doing what s/he can to help. Stores everywhere are darkened and operating with minimal electricity, so as to help conserve power for the region. Rolling blackouts continue and will likely last the whole of summer, if not longer. This isn’t the only disaster in the world today, but it’s the one closest to me now. I know Japan will recover, but no one can say how long it will take.

 You’ve got to do what you can-where you can-however you can.

KI at the NS: An American Odyssey

This past Sunday while I was checking for news updates I noticed that the US Embassy in Tokyo had started making KI pills freely available to US citizens at two locations in Tokyo. Previously this was something offered only to the families of government officers (diplomats and military)…and wealthy expats. I had read an article the previous day in the WSJ about an elite Tokyo club (annual membership dues of $10k) that had circulated information to its US citizen members about the availability of KI tablets. “If Dave Spector was getting potassium iodide from the US government, so was I,” I vowed.

Actually, it was more than that. As I wrote earlier, I honestly believe the danger of iodine-131 radiation in Chiba to be negligible. But rather than appearing negligent to my family and readers, I thought I would pick up the pills as a purely precautionary measure (plus it makes for an interesting blog post). Who knows when you’ll run right into a nuclear crisis, right? Hopefully this will help to calm my family down. Not only that, but the pills give me reason to start the hobby I’ve always dreamed about: scrapbooking.

On Sunday I headed into Tokyo to meet a friend who was visiting from Kyoto. I figured I better start preparing for real American contact so we headed to one of Tokyo’s best burger joint, Reg On Burger. I’m not a burger freak, but once in while I get the craving (kind of like a werewolf and the full moon). If you’re a meat-eating American who has lived in Japan longer than a month, you know that finding a real burger here is like taking on a quest for the Grail. You gallop off chasing after a beautiful dream, but the search leaves you grizzled and trail worn, burger-less as ever. Reg On Burger is about as close as I’ve come to the real thing.

After lunch, I said goodbye to my friend and headed off with passport in hand to the NSH(otel). When we finally arrived, the security guard informed me that the medicine wasn’t available today and told me to come back the next day (Monday). I know that the Embassy is incredibly busy, but this really should’ve been corrected on the website. A round trip for me in and out of Tokyo costs about 2 hrs and $10 USD, but I’m certain that for others the cost and commute is much more taxing.

On Monday I woke with a sore throat. I survived the school year without catching anything, but as soon as spring break starts I catch a cold. Not a big deal, just ironic.

After work (the students are off but I'm at the BoE during spring break), I prepared to head off to New Sanno Hotel once more. I learned my lesson, so Before leaving the house I thought to call the US Embassy and h(otel) to confirm. Unfortunately no one I spoke with could say for sure what was or wasn’t happening at the NS in regards to the KI tablets. That sounded promising to me, so I decided to try my luck again. When I arrived, I was greeted by a security checkpoint (apparently only US citizens may stay at the NS). Walking into the lobby, the first thing I notice besides the dark wood is that it smelled like the States. It’s hard to explain what I mean by that. When I was a kid, I used to fly Southwest airlines every couple of weeks. I remember the smell of these airplanes very well…roasted peanuts, cabin-pressurized air, cologne, stewardesses, well-read magazines, etc. The NSH(otel) smells like the US, or maybe I mean it smells like those planes and those planes smell like the US.

The Embassy staff was very helpful. The ballroom where they were distributing tablets was not full, but there was a steady stream of people coming in for the KI tablets (families, couples, individuals). We each got a week’s worth of KI tablets without any difficulties. I thought some of you would be interested in reading the information provided with the tablets...

So we each got a week’s worth of KI tablets, which is more than enough for either of us. It’s extremely unlikely (and becoming more and more unlikely) that these will become necessary during the current crisis. I doubt I will ever need to use them, but then again I can’t say that I expected any of this to happen. Sure, I had heard that the Big One was coming to Kanto, but in my mind it was always just “coming” not “arriving.”

The Embassy staff told me that if it were necessary to take the pills, it would not be advisable to take a week’s worth. If it ever became necessary to take the pills, one should plan on leaving the area as soon as possible. The pills should only be used until you’re safely away from the Iodine-131 threat.

Not quite your average Sunday in Tokyo...

Suddenly startling cesium starts sounding silly?

Sibilant onomatopoeia.

A lot of people will tell you, Uranium’s unstable spawn, cesium-137, is not the kind of isotope you want to invite home for dinner. Unfortunately in certain parts of Japan the radioisotope reared its ugly rays (The amount is extremely low and so not thought to be a danger to health.). This is the kind of unstable element that hiccups radiation for decades before fading out. It’s a real man’s radioisotope, hanging out mostly in your muscle tissue like a gym rat. Fortunately, the body is good at housekeeping (especially with a little help from Prussian blue to wash it down). Within 10-100 days of sucking down some cesium, your body will give half of it the boot. This isn’t to say that the element decays nearly as fast. Cesium-137’s half life is 30.17 years. Better out than in, though.

So long iodine-131 and 134

It’s been 17 days since the earthquake (the date I posted this and the date I wrote it differ). So long as no more nuclear fission is being produced (this seems likely at this point), the overall quantity should be decreasing, right? The stuff that was produced is still blowing about, though. How long will it take for the iodine produced on the day of the mega-quake to dissipate from the environment?

*Note: My MA is in applied linguistics. Sure, I had high school science and I like to read, but that hardly qualifies me to do more than ask questions and safely operate my microwave oven. If you’re a hard scientist, please feel free to correct any errors in my table.

This post will focus on iodine-131 because it’s become the Charlie Sheen of radionuclides. Iodine-131 is dangerous to living things because it is has highly energetic beta radiation. In other words, it likes to shake its tail feather. Beta radiation from iodine-131 can extend 0.6 – 2 mm. It’s a danger to humans because your thyroid slurps up iodine until its stuffed. Other parts of the body use/absorb iodine, but the thyroid gets its fill first. There’s a pecking order in your body and when it comes to iodine your thyroid is first in line. Unfortunately for us mortals, in its feeding frenzy, the human thyroid doesn’t distinguish between radioactive iodine and stable iodine.

Iodine-131 does have its uses, though. It can be used to treat certain types/stages of thyroid cancer. Getting a little iodine-131 dust on your skin is n reason to panic, as it isn’t rapidly absorbed that way. According to a study by Nyiri and Jannitti (1932), only 1-2% of iodine applied topically is absorbed into the blood stream readily. An additional 8-11% of the iodine applied to the skin will be absorbed into the skin, where it will slowly be released into the bloodstream. 12% of a miniscule amount is...to use a technical expression, “very, very little.”

Breathing in radioactive iodine attached to dust particles and pollen is something that’s been suggested in overseas media. Wearing a mask might protect you breathing in a lungful of pollen and a couple of hitchhiking atoms of iodine-131.

This reminds me of a joke that some BoE members made the other day in the hallway. Right now in Japan, cedar pollen is around its peak. Many people are terribly allergic to the pollen, so they wear masks to minimize their irritation and hay fever. The pollen is so plentiful that it was collecting on the roofs and awnings of buildings in the area. Since the pollen is a wild shade of neon yellow, several teachers made the joke that it was radioactive Godzilla dust, and not pollen at all.

You can see how seriously educators here take the threat of airborne radioactive dust. It’s a non-issue for them at this point.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, iodine-131 has a short half-life (roughly eight days). It was already in extremely low concentrations, and continues its rapid decay. Some foreigners in and around Tokyo and Chiba (and their relatives) are worried about recent reports of contaminated water. Admittedly, hearing that your tap water may be contaminated (with anything in however small an amount) is never a reason to celebrate. It’s natural to be concerned, I think. You can’t see it or smell it but you’re told it is there in X quantity.

Maybe the rest of this post will help assuage unreasonable fears by putting the matter into perspective.

The bad news is…if you were exposed to any iodine-131, and you swallowed (water, air, etc), the isotope made its way into your blood (so says Keith Baverstock).

The good news is…even if we assume dose effects to a linear no-threshold model (that is, a constant positive correlation between radiation and risk), your increased risk of cancer from exposure to contaminated tap water is roughly 0.003% for men and 0.02% for women (Hoffman)(It looks like we're all still insurable for cancer, huh?). The influence at this dose is so small, it’s said to be indistinguishable from the normal (random) rate of occurrence in a population. Not only that, but the estimated 0.003% increase in risk for men assumes that you’re drinking 2 L of 200 Bq tap water a day. If you’re over 40, relax-- you’re over 40; you have enough to worry about as it is (try not to light that cigarette, though). If you’re over 40, congratulations…your chances of increased cancer risk from Tokyo tap water seem non-existent (I’m guess that’s got to be the best news that you’ve heard since turning 40). So far, for those of us in and around Tokyo, worrying about low-dose radiation is probably the clearest danger to physical and mental well-being.

It get’s even better (maybe).

The absolute best-case scenario is… being exposed to a low dose of radiation may actually lessen your chances of developing cancer. There’s not a whole lot of evidence for this, and if something seems too good to be true, it probably is...

I’m a cautious guy, so I’m betting that the effect of iodine-131-infused tap water should be null (neither slightly good nor slightly bad). There are simply too many confounding variable to say much of anything about the effects of low dose radiation with confidence.

Am I groundlessly confident? Not really. Am I without concern? My concern is diminishing the more I learn about this (and so should yours!).

First, I should say that I’ve preemptively started on a strict red wine/sake regiment…indefinitely…

That’s got to be reducing my tap water intake, right?

More seriously, though…

I mentioned that Hoffman’s predicted 0.003% increase risk in developing cancer assumes consuming 2 L of 200 Bq of tap water, daily. In Chiba (where I live), the Bq level is significantly lower (0.79 Bq/kg). Even if I “recklessly” drank 6 L of this water, I shouldn’t see anything near as much as a 0.2% increase risk of thyroid cancer from contaminated tap water. Lucky for me, this “risk” is decreasing day-by-day, thanks to iodine-131’s relatively short half-life.

A word of caution, though…

Are you pregnant or preadolescent? Are you an infant or soon-to-be newborn? If so, you should try to avoid drinking contaminated tap water as much as possible. Adolescent development is very sensitive stuff, as you’ve probably heard. If you’re preadolescent and you have to drink the water, don’t panic—your increased risk of cancer (based on the available science) is still very low (but the increase is life-long). The closer to age zero (i.e. fetuses, infants) you are, the more dangerous radiation and carcinogens seem to be. That’s seems pretty intuitive, though.

One thing I was unable to find when preparing this post was this: how quickly is iodine processed by the thyroid? I’m not sure how relevant it is to the discussion of iodine-131, but I’m curious. Is iodine consumption by the thyroid a constant rate, or influenced by exercise, diet, age, gender, genetics, etc? Since metabolic rates differ so greatly among individuals, I’m guessing the rate this fuel is burned by the thyroid also differs…there should be a normal range, though.


If you're using what I've written to make a decision about your health, let me remind you that I'm not a doctor or a scientist, just a concerned reader.

Meet your radionuclides!

It’s important to know your radioisotopes. Not all radionuclides are created equal (in fact, none of them are). Each isotope has unique properties (radiation, rates, ranges, and lifespans).

I'll dedicate the next couple of posts to talking about cesium and iodine radioisotopes.

The US Embassy in Tokyo has a Youtube channel

A welcomed video from the US Embassy in Tokyo

The head of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Norman Coleman, talks about radiation in and around Tokyo.  

Those who are worried would do well to watch this (in order to relax and get some perspective).