Auto-Immune Disease At All-tIme High In Kids

A news report from the Japan Times on March 17, 2012 says that there is an apparent increase in the number of Japanese people suffering from the autoimmune disease Kawasaki Syndrome, that tends to mainly afflict young children under the age of five years of age.

This disease causes the medium-sized blood cells to become inflamed. It affects the organs, primarily the blood vesels, skin, mucous membranes and lymph nodes, and though rare, it can be fatal if it attacks the heart, causing coronary artery aneurisms - a heart attack.

While there is no known cause or cure for Kawasaki Syndrome, a recent survey (conducted every two years) shows that in 2010 for patients under four years of age, there were 12,755 cases - the sixth year in a row it has surpassed 10,000.

"The incidence of the disease has been rising steadily since the mid-1990s, although we don't know exactly what has been behind the latest increase," states Nakamura Yoshikazu (surname first), a public health professor at Jichi Medical University in Tochigi-ken.

Further troubling was the incidence of Kawasaki Syndrome per 100,000 kids under the age of four: 239.6, which was the highest rate recorded since the study began in 1970, eclipsing the previous high of 219.9 back in 2008.

The 2010 total also was the third-highest level on record, after the 15,519 incidences in 1982 and the 12,847 cases four years later.

Kawasaki Syndrome was first discovered in Japan by pediatrician Kawasaki Tomisaku (surname first) diagnosed it in 1967. The disease is not just limited to Japan, of course. 

For those wanting to be safe or worried, the main symptoms include high fever, strawberry-like red bumps on the tongue (see photo above, which includes: the strawberry tongue, bright red swollen lips with vertical cracking and bleeding), swollen lymph nodes in the neck, skin rashes and bloodshot eyes.

While there is an effective treatment - intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) from 3-10,00 healthy donors - for 20 per cent of the patients, it does not work. Research continues. 

Files compiled by Andrew Joseph

Matchbox

Today, Monday, November 11, 1991 is an office day for me here in Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken, Japan. As a junior high school assistant English teacher (AET) on the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme I work four days a week at one of the seven schools in the city and one day at the OBOE (Ohtawara Board of Education) office writing up a report that takes me 10 minutes on average to do.

Like usual, I do very little that is constructive at the office. Check that - usually I write letters to family and friends back home in Toronto whom I haven't seen in 15 months, or I write short stories... but since I quit my post as the editor of the Tatami Times AET Tochigi newsletter last week, I don't feel like it.

As well... my left eye hurts like a motherf***er. It's been bothering me for days and days, and to say that it hasn't affected my demeanor would be doing the pain an injustice.

I hint to Hanazaki-san (one of my two bosses at the OBOE, and who speaks better English than Kanemaru-san), that my eye is bothering the heck out of me.

He says okay, and says we'll go have it looked at... but first he wants to show me the itinerary for the Mid-Year Block Conference for JET AETs. He then tells me I have to babysit (his exact words) Van Granger, who arrived in Japan this past summer. Great. Mister Personality.

No one baby-sat me last year! Did they? No! I went down early, screwed a female AET(Christine) in the shower of a men's sports change-room, came in the next morning and made a speech about how to teach a class. I was high on pheromones, beer, vodka and sake (Japanese rice wine) so I have no idea to this day what speech I made up on the spot. It was apparently funny and well-received - or so I was told.

While I haven't been asked to give a speech this year, I was recently asked to take over as the leader of Tochigi-ken JET - which I turned down as I didn't see how it was going to get me laid more often.

In hindsight, I haven't been getting laid all that much more without the honor... and I could have used it on a resume to get this gig 20 years later writing about Japan. So... less work, more time to  mope about not getting laid, and future Andrew has a different story to tell rather than one about JET politics. And yes... I do have a degree in Political Science, but that doesn't mean I want to play politics. Doctor, perhaps.

Hanazaki-san and I then go to Mr. Inoue's shop for an eye exam. I am, of course, very worried that I don't know enough Japanese letters to be able to pass a literacy test let alone an eye test.

Uh... is it 'ba-ka-ga-ji-n'?*(see below)

Luckily, the test Inoue-san's nurse give me involves me pointing out which way the letter E is pointing: up, down, left or right. It always points right. Right?

Apparently I don't concentrate very hard with my right eye at all. Yeah... but that's not the problem. What about the pain in my left eye?

So I finally tell the nurse: "Itai (pain)" and point to my left eye.

She understands and says in perfect English: "Just one moment An-do-ryu-sensei. I'll just go tell the doctor."

And then she winks at me.

Christ. Not another one? Well... I suppose I could squeeze her in tonight between 9 and 11PM.

The doctor comes back with the nurse... doesn't look at my eye, but instructs her (in English!!) to take out An-do-ryu-sensei's contact lenses.

Now... I'm not a doctor, though I have been one in a bar, but I know I could have taken my own contacts out a lot faster than this nurse who spent about 60 seconds prodding at my eye to peel out my lens.

So... long story short... apparently I have a scratch on my left cornea.

No kidding! Probably caused by the nurse's talon. That's it! She's not getting any Andrew!

Anyhow... I'm told (in English) not to wear my contacts for a few days - only glasses. Aaaaaaggghh! Are you kidding me? I wear these glasses of mine, and I'm not getting laid ever again - hot to trot talon-ted nurse or not!

I get some eye drops and pain killers and employ both.

I go home and, since I have an adult night school class to teach tonight, I keep my contacts in.

Mrs. Ohno gives me some flowers for my birthday last Friday, and Mrs. Narita gives me a telephone card. Sweet people!

I go home, wrench out my contact lenses and with no one around to ridicule me, I put on my Coke bottles glasses.

I'm about to watch a Japanese porno cartoon I rented earlier that evening (my first ever), when the doorbell rings.

I peer through the eyehole at the front door. Crap.

It's Junko. My secret girlfriend, who has a boyfriend, but enjoys stepping out with me for some bedroom fun. So far.. she's the best stalker ever. So far. I guy can hope, right?

I don't want to let her see me with my glasses on!

I let her in... she immediately grabs my face in her hands, kisses me and asks (in her usual perfect English), how the scratch on my eye is.

I would ask her how the hell she knows I have a scratch on my eye - but it's Junko. She seems to know everything about me.

I don't even ask why she's here on a Monday away Utsunomiya University, when I know she has school tomorrow, too.

She jumps on me and knocks me backwards, with the back of my head hitting a wall. 

Right now... I know it's better to just shut up and enjoy the double vision. 

Somewhere wondering why everyone is speaking English today,
Andrew Joseph

*ba-ka-ga-i-ji-n is really baka gaijin = stupid foreigner.
Today's blog title is from The Beatles, and was used because, if you listen to the words, you can tell I am, god help me, Junko's puppy dog.

Hotel Radioactivity To Open In Fukushima

Okay... This seems a little hard to believe, but there's a Japanese dude intent on building a hotel in Fukushima-ken (Fukushima Prefecture) - where the Dai-ichi nuclear reactor facility nearly suffered through a couple of meltdowns, but managed to spew a lot of dangerous radioactive Cesium up into the air, water and ground - to prove that radiation is not dangerous to the human body.

According to Soejima Takahhiko (surname first), he believes that by building his Hotel Radioactivity or what he also calls a Health Land, that he will be able to prove that people can actually receive a health benefit from the hormesis effect of low-level radiation.

Radiation hormesis is a theory that states that low levels of ionizing radiation (more than standard background radiation that we are constantly bombarded with everyday), is something that can be beneficial to the human body. It is theorized that it can stimulate the repair mechanisms with the human body to help it better protect against diseases. It is thought that these repair mechanisms that are started by the extra radiation will also be strong enough to cancel the harmful effects of the extra radiation and will also cancel any harmful effects of ionizing radiation but will also help the body fight diseases.

Sounds wacky, but legitimate scientists think this is possible.

Back in 2005,  the French Academy of Sciences - National Academy of Medicine reported that hormesis works.

But, even now, no one is sure if it will work outside the laboratory - in real life. Soejima thinks it will, and feels that by building the Hotel Radioactivity, it will prove this hypothesis correct.  

Soejima writes on his website that:

"Since the beginning of the nuclear accident in March, our group has done a tremendous job in Fukushima, dispatching the objective news and writing "Such a ultra-minute amount of radiation does not harm human body". However, [these idiots] are still not convinced, and continue to spew their stupid words of radiation phobia."

Sounds like he is serious about hormesis.

Japan - It's A Wonderful Rife feels it is our duty to at least give everyone a heads-up - a warning - when checking into a hotel in Fukushima-ken. It sounds a lot like the Roach Motel product... guests check in, but they don't check out.

Look... we understand that science likes to investigate things. We're cool with that. But to do your tests on human beings - at this stage of the hypothesis? No.  More tests are needed, and more years are needded to ensure that the test subjects - mice, rats, whatever - are not going to get sick months or years later. Cancer has a nasty habit of showing up years after exposure. As well, what about mental illness? Can you test animals for that? Will you? And for yourself, too please?

Okay, that last sentence was unfair... but seriously, can someone tell me what is considered TOO much radiation?

Okay... the theory is not without some interesting things. Human beings have been using toxins to create anti-toxins for centuries. The same for vaccinations... flu shots will give us a fever after - why, because each flu shot actually contains a bit of the flu virus. Same for small pox, chicken pox, you name it.

Want to steel yourself against a poison, many people actually ingest small doses of poison on a daily basis. Yes it weakens then, but then it helps them develop  - not an immunity - but rather it makes them less susceptible to the effects of a stronger dose of poison... it makes our immune systems stronger.

It sounds a lot like what radiation hormesis and Soejima are trying to do.

All this blog can say is this: You go first.

We'll follow - in the first car behind the ambulance.
 
By Andrew Joseph