Tokyo Tap Water

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Anxiety Up as Tokyo Issues Warning on Its Tap Water,” shows that the problems with the Fukushima nuclear plants are much greater than the Tokyo Electric Power Company has acknowledged. A high level of radioactive iodine in the tap water led Japanese officials to suggest withholding the tap water from infants in the Tokyo area.

The warning, of course, led to a run on bottled water in all the stores, with people buying 20-to-30 bottles at a time. So the Japanese government had to promise to distribute bottled water to families with infants, approximately 80,000 in all. Meanwhile, other countries, the United States included, started to prohibit imports of Japanese food products.

Radioactive iodine is particularly harmful to children because they are growing more rapidly, and their thyroid glands are much more active. It is estimated that the tolerable dose for infants is 16 times lower than adults. The use of potassium iodide as medicine helps to flood the thyroid gland and reduces the absorption of the radioactive version.

Meanwhile, the nuclear plants continue to spew radiation into the environment with smoke emitted from reactor #3 yesterday, leading to another temporary evacuation of workers trying to make repairs. And Tokyo Electric Power is still not out of the woods. Experts estimate another 10 days before the situation is finally brought under control.