Shinzo Kimura: Minami Soma's Ms. Numauchi Suffers from Autoimmune Disease Caused by Stress

"Women are particularly sensitive to stress", he says, and they can't control themselves. In this particular case, it must be the fear of radiation that had stressed her so much before summer, and it manifested itself in fall when her teeth started to fall off.

In other words, he's saying she had stressed herself out from the fear of radiation, and became ill with stress-induced autoimmune disease.

What Shinzo Kimura, 44-year-old radiation specialist at Dokkyo University (radiation hygiene) and former researcher at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health and Labor), says about Ms. Emiko Numauchi's health problems doesn't quite add up.

On the one hand, he insists they are the symptoms of an unspecified autoimmune disease caused by the stress from the nuclear power plant accident, and she's more sensitive to stress because she is a woman. On the other hand, he says that there is no known mechanism whereby stress causes an autoimmune disease or any disease.

He pays a lip service to a possibility of her problems being caused by radiation, but quickly he assures it's feminine stress that caused an autoimmune disease that in turn caused her teeth, nails, and hair to fall off and her skin to be covered rapidly with blisters.

Kimura became a hero to many Japanese who wanted to know how bad the contamination from the nuclear accident was, when he was prominently featured in the NHK documentary series of "Mapping the radiation". A champion of people who quit his job at a government research institute to measure the radiation all over Fukushima Prefecture. Asahi Shinbun's "Trap of Prometheus" also created a series around him ("Resignation of a Researcher").

But what he said in an interview with Yasumi Iwakami the other day discussing Ms. Numauchi's condition and the way he said it have made me cautious that he may not be what people have made him to be.

What he said is the following. I used the transcript at this site. You can view how he said it in the video linked at the bottom, after 63 minutes 30 seconds into the video.

岩上氏：
沼内さんの場合は放射線によるものか、それともストレスによるものか、あるいは、その他の何かによるものなのか、どう思われますか。

Iwakami: What is Ms. Numauchi suffering from? Is it from radiation, stress, or something else? What do you think?

木村：
まず考えられるのが、ストレスによる自己免疫系疾患が大きいのかなと考えられますね。
歯が抜ける、爪がはがれる、髪が抜け落ちるというのは、自己免疫疾患の炎症反応の一種であろうと。
で、紅斑も、それに付随するもので、皮膚の炎症が起きるから紅斑が広がっていくというように考えます。

Kimura: Most likely, it is autoimmune disease from stress. Teeth falling off, nails peeling off, hair falling off, these must be a type of inflammatory reaction due to an autoimmune disease. Red spots on the skin is also from the autoimmune disease. As the skin inflammation happens, the red spots spread.

その自己免疫系疾患の原因として考えられるのが、ストレスであろうと。
そのストレスというのが放射線に対する恐怖というのが、時間をおいて、すぐに出てこないわけですよね。

It must be stress that causes the autoimmune disease. Stress, or fear of radiation, does not manifest itself immediately. It takes time.

人間の体というのは、タイムラグをおいて、発症するまでの時間が極度のストレスを受けた後に出てくるわけです。

In a human body, there's a time lag between the onset of an illness and the time of extreme stress.

で、夏までの非常に強いストレスが、秋から季節変動によって出てきたというのは、季節変動によって出てくる可能性が十分あるというように考えますが、ストレスというのも原発事故に由来するわけですから、放射能でなくても原発事故の被害者であるわけです。

So, the extreme stress by summer manifested in an illness in fall. It is very likely that the seasonal change triggered it. But stress was caused by the nuclear plant accident after all, so she is a victim of the nuclear plant accident even if it is not radiation sickness.

それは確かであろうと思います。

That much I am certain.

ただ個体差があります。
個体差によっては感受性が非常に強かったり、そういう場合には、このようなことが起きるかも知れない。
で、それが内部被曝による影響が強かったかもしれないし。

But there are individual differences. Some people are more sensitive [to radiation? stress?], and in that case this kind of thing [what's happening to Ms. Numauchi] may happen. It may be because of internal radiation exposure.

レントゲンとか、健康診断を受けたことがないような人ではないと思いますので、外部被曝は、ある程度まで被曝したことはあるとは思うのですが、それに何ら影響がなかったとしたら、何らかの内部被曝の影響があるのかもしれない。

I am sure she has done health checkups with X-rays, so she must have been exposed to some radiation. But if such radiation didn't have any effect in the past, then there may be some kind of internal radiation exposure.

南相馬でも、僕は3月28日に浪江町から相馬のほうに行くときに、国道6号線が使えないので、県道15号線だったかを通っていったんですが、そこでも分断されていたので、裏道を通ったときに、150マイクロシーベルトの場所があったわけですよ。

In Minami Soma, when I passed on March 28 from Namie-machi to Soma I used the prefectural route 15, instead of the national route 5. Even that was cut off, so I took the back route. There was a spot with 150 microsieverts/hour.

そういう地域に住んでいたとしたら、（沼内さんのような症状が出るということは）ありえるとは思います。
住んでいる場所によって、いちがいには言えないので分らないんですが。

If people live in such area, it may be possible (to develop symptoms like Ms. Numauchi). I don't know, because I can't make a sweeping statement. It depends on where you live.

ストレスが影響するというメカニズムまでは分らないと思うんですよ。

I don't think we will know the mechanism of how stress affects [health].

ただ、私や岩上さんは、非常にストレスに強いほうだと思うんですよ。
強い人間からは分らないんですよ。

But you, Mr. Iwakami, and I are resistant to high stress. We cannot tell from a stress-resistant person.

ウサギだって、飼い主がいなくなれば淋しさで死んでしまうという話があるくらいですから、同じことが人間にあってもおかしくないわけじゃないですか。
それだけ、ストレスというのは大きいわけですよ。

I hear rabbits die of loneliness when abandoned by the owners. The same can happen to humans, can't it? Stress play that big of a role.

特にストレスに対しては女性のほうが感受性が強いんですよね。
これは良い意味でも悪い意味でも感受性が強い。

In particular, women are more sensitive to stress. For good or bad, they are more sensitive.

その感受性のせいで、自己抑制がしにくいというのも女性の特徴なんです。
そういう特徴も含めた上で、ストレスというのは妥当なんではないかというふうに考えます。

It's also a female characteristic that, because of that sensitivity, they cannot control themselves. Taking that also into consideration, I think it is appropriate to identify stress as the cause [of her problems].

岩上：
自己免疫疾患が起きると、歯とか爪とか、そういうものを（自分のものでありながら）異物として捉える、という、それについては。

Iwakami: So, if you have an autoimmune disease, teeth, nails are attacked as foreign objects?

木村：
免疫低下によって、感染症が拡大すると、やはり免疫が賦活化します。
賦活化すると、それが手当たり次第に攻撃を始めるわけです。

Kimura: When the immune depression causes the spread of infection, the immune system is activated. Once activated, it starts to attack indiscriminately.

今まで自分の体として認識していたものが、認識しなくなって、これを外敵と認識してしまう可能性が高いわけですよね。

It starts to recognize the part of the body as foreign enemy [pathogen].

そういう自己免疫系疾患というのは、たとえばリウマチであったり、IgA（アイ・ジー・エイ）腎症、http://www.nanbyou.or.jp/entry/41※イムノ・グロブリンAという抗体があるんですが、扁桃体で作られるもので、それが大量にできると今度は腎臓を攻撃するんです。

Such autoimmune diseases include rheumatoid arthritis and IgA nephropathy. The antibody called IgA (immunoglobulin A) is produced in the corpus amygdaloideum, but once too many antibodies are produced they start to attack the kidney.

そのように自己免疫系疾患が出てきたり、さまざまな病気が出てくるんですよ。

So there are autoimmune diseases and all kinds of other diseases.

ですから、ストレスによって今度は腎臓病にもなってしまうという、さまざまな病気があってもおかしくないわけですよ。

Stress can cause renal diseases. It can cause all kinds of diseases.

炎症反応が出てきている、ということなので、自己免疫系疾患の可能性が高いな、と踏んだわけです。

Because of the inflammatory reaction, I think it is highly probable that it is an autoimmune disease that she's suffering from.

Ms. Numauchi has a deep, low voice and jovial, cheerful demeanor, and by looking at her and listening to her the last thing you would think is this is one stressed-out, super-sensitive woman. She looks like the man of the house, in fact, without seeing her husband.

Instead of insisting she suffers from stress-induced autoimmune disease, Mr. Kimura should have done what he became famous for: take samples of soil, vegetation in and around her house and measure the radiation, and check her with the special equipment that was featured in the NHK documentary that can measure internal radiation easily.

But he didn't, and Iwakami didn't ask him to do so.

Minami Soma City has just been found with 11 microsieverts/hour locations in the areas where the residents are returning.

Ms. Numauchi is not at all saying her problems are the result of radiation exposure. She says she just wants to know why they've been happening to her, her friend, and her husband. With a nationally known radiation specialist and a popular independent journalist telling her it's just stress because she is a woman, she must have been disappointed.

I guess her husband, who suffers numb feet and severe fatigue, must also be suffering from a feminine stress.

Here's the vid (probably against Iwakami's intention to restrict the video to his subscribers only and pay-per-view) uploaded by BakaTEPCO10 (meaning "stupid TEPCO 10"). Kimura appear safter 63 minutes 30 seconds into the video:

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