“2010, water, rice, pesticide…”

Keiko was still in the laboratory, looking into SNS to search for any trivial article which was likely related to infertility. But it was really a hard work to find a possible clue. Keiko had stayed in the Laboratory for weeks.

At last she hit at one article about “Imported Rice”.

It was very strange Japan imported rice from foreign countries because Japan could self-supply its own staple food. The reason was the Uruguay Round which was the agreement of multilateral trade negotiation. Many countries had participated in this Round for free trade zone. The participant was required to lower custom duties for all commodities. But as for Japan rice is the critical agriproduct for protecting domestic farmers. Therefore the Government accepted an exception so called “Minimum Access Rice” which Japan was forced to import some volume of rice as a substitute for lowering income duties. Thanks to this exception Japan could successfully keep higher custom duties against rice.

But Keiko was reluctant when she read the article furthermore. The Minimum Access was only 8 percent and they were limited to the manufacture use not for food. Keiko sighed and turn off her PC. It was not so easy to find the dangerous substances.

Several days had passed. At the Entrance of Institution.

The entrance was very busy with morning rush. Keiko found one slender man at the reception desk. She was familiar with him.

“Mr. Issiki? Is it you?”

All the people looked back them. With her voice they were surrounded by many people. Mr. Issiki, who had challenged making a clone baby, was very famous and everybody now knew his name.

“What are you doing here?”

“Who are you?”

“I am Keiko Tsuyama, a researcher of this Institution.”

“Oh, you are Miss Tsuyama, aren’t you? I have heard your name in the infertility study. Well, you were transferred from Takezawa recently. Am I right?”

They stood face to face at the entrance in critical atmosphere. People surrounded them with curious looking.

“Is there something…?”

“Yes, I came here just to say hello to Dr. Shinohara. From now on we should cooperate with each other much more.”

“No. Dr. Shinohara will never see you. You were in the wrong way.”

“Are you sure? He will. He should apologize to me. Two years ago I had expected such a day would come and actually it does now. But Dr. Shinohara did not understand my intention but kicked me out from here. What was the result? Only terrible panic in Japan.”

“You are wrong. However tough it is, we will never give up and should keep our efforts.”

“Hahaha…, you seem very optimistic. Can you understand the struggle of infertile patients? How do you know their painful conflict? They cannot have a child who has blood relationship. Do you understand their misery?”

Keiko lost her word. They stood there for a while. At the moment the crowd was separated and Dr. Shinohara came in the entrance..

“Mr. Issiki. This is not your place. Get out of here soon,”

“Oh, Dr. Shinohara. It has been long time. It is a little rude to send away a person who just came here to meet you.”

“I have nothing talk with you. Go away.”

“Is it really OK you treat me like that? I have got big support from many infertile patients. More than 3 thousands volunteers have already registered clinical trials for my Clone Baby Experiment.”

At the moment big roar echoed in the entrance hall. 3 thousands clone babies?

“Are you going mad? Such action cannot be approved absolutely.”

“Well, well. I think it is up to the public opinion. As I said, many infertile people wanted to have their own blood related children. Nobody can stop it. No law can prohibit it. That is a human.”

“I think it might be too hasty. We should take much more time to search for the cause of infertility”

“Then when will you find the cause? How long should we wait? Can you clear the time limit?”

“As soon as possible. Now Miss Tsuyama is working very hard for that. I believe we can see the good outcome soon.”

Dr. Shinohara turned to Keiko.

“OK, OK, I understood. I will give you two months. It is a time for abortion for that pregnant patient.

After that it will be impossible to make an abortion. It means the birth of first Human Clone Baby in the world. Is it OK?”

Mr. Issiki shot a challenging glance to Keiko and Dr. Shinohara and turned back.

Keiko burst into tears in Dr. Shinohara’s room.

“Miss Tsuyama. Don’t mind. Mr. Issiki is as such a guy.”

“But, professor Shinohara. It was too rude and arrogant.”

“Let him alone. Then did you have any good news thereafter?”

Keiko got calm down gradually and explained her assumption.

“Hmm. Minimum Access Rice. It is likely.”

“But it was only 8 percent of total supply and only for manufacture use.”

“That’s right. But it was almost 10 years ago. The Government had changed the importing country from South East Asia to China to keep enough volume of Minimum Access. But at that time prohibited pesticide residue was found by the custom inspections. Let’s see, it was methamidophos.

Yes, I remember, methamidophos. That problem was argued at the parliament. But the Government continued to import that polluted rice considering diplomatic relation with Chine. Instead the Government restricted only for manufacture use.”

“The possibility might be lower, but I will check the acting mechanism of metamidophos just for reminder.”

Keiko stood up in a hurry.

“Oh, oh. You had better take a rest. It’s an order.”

Keiko got out of the room before Dr. Shinohara’s warning.

Keiko started the preparation for an experiment. She got an undiluted solution of metamidophos at the Pharmaceutical Division and set three groups of laboratory mice. She fed normal bait for the first group, for the second group bait mixing metamidophos expected same volume as pesticide residue and for the third group bait mixing ten times metamidophos.

“OK, finshed. I will get the result within two weeks.”

Almost same time, Kazuki was making an interview with one person.

After infertility problem was focused, the Hounichi Newspaper planned the special cover story “Food Safety”. For this article Kazuki was collecting information from various sources.

“What? Is that a camouflage, isn’t it? Illegal actions.”

“Maybe it could be. But we had no other choice at that time. Every company did it more or less. The Government had forced us to buy the decided volume of imported rice only for manufacture use. But nobody kept it. If we kept regulation precisely, we would fall into the red.”

The man continued without any sense of guilty. Kazuki accused.

“But if it was contaminated by any pesticide residue…”

“It could be a big problem, I understood. But it could not be helped because it was an order from the president. If I refused, I was surely fired. Almost all the companies blended both domestic and imported rice. If it was 8 vs 2, nobody could noticed it was blended. All we should do was putting a label of ‘Pure 100 percent domestic Koshihikari’. It was very easy.”

Kazuki lost his words and took his mobile phone.

“Kei, is it you?”

Keiko heard an excited voice of Kazuki. Kazuki talked the story which he got just now.

“What, what do you mean by that?”

“I, I say, in a word, there was a possibility contaminated rice had been blended and distributed secretly and illegally.”

“But the Government had regulated only for manufacture use. Why?”

“It was the very bureaucratic work. Only issuing a notification letter and no flow-up check. The rice wholesaler hadn’t kept the regulation.”

“That means we had eaten contaminated rice for a long time without knowing.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

Keiko thought it was a typical case of Environmental Hormone. If the poison is much, then the result has come out soon. But in case the volume is too small to notice, the concrete symptom will never appear until accumulated.

To be continued