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COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2016

The huge public impact of domestic violence

Domestic violence against women is so widespread that it has become a global public health issue.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2016

In Zika, Brazilians face a modern-day plague

The Zika virus has infected at least half a million Brazilians since May.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 30, 2015

Tuberculosis showing a resurgence in China

China now has the second-largest tuberculosis epidemic — second only to India — with more than 1.3 million new cases of tuberculosis every year.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 24, 2015

Smoke signals: Can Tokyo ever go smoke-free?

Japan has long held a reputation of being something of a paradise for smokers. Tobacco is, at least by Western standards, relatively cheap and people can still light up in many of the country's restaurants and bars. In fact, before the turn of the century smokers could pretty much puff away on a cigarette...
EDITORIALS
Oct 15, 2014

Asbestos victims deserve relief

The government needs to take a top court decision seriously and move quickly to offer financial help to asbestos victims.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 14, 2014

Can all U.S. hospitals safely treat Ebola?

A breach of infection control resulting in a Dallas health worker getting Ebola raises fresh questions about whether hospitals truly can safely take care of people with the deadly virus, as health officials insist is possible.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 3, 2014

Scores in U.S. possibly exposed to Dallas Ebola patient; four isolated

More than 80 people had direct or indirect contact with the first person to be diagnosed with the deadly Ebola virus in the United States, health officials said Thursday, as four members of the patient's family were quarantined as a precaution.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 2, 2014

The call to raise tobacco taxes and save lives

If the government of Japan increased the amount of excise tax on cigarette packs by 50 percent (to 68 percent of the final retail price), there would be 1.5 million fewer smokers and 330,000 smoking-attributable deaths would be averted.
EDITORIALS
Jan 27, 2014

Alcohol dependency in Japan

A major problem in Japan, where an estimated 6.45 million people have alcohol-related problems, is the lack of social recognition that alcohol dependency is an illness.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2013

ACA website to New Yorker: drop dead for now

The not-typically-quotable U.S. House Speaker John Boehner does have a point when he asks how we can we tax people for not buying Obamacare from a website that doesn't work.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 9, 2013

Declaring war on sugar-loaded 'healthy' drinks

The tin of 7UP rolls to a stop at my feet. I pick it up, scowling at the kid on a bike who'd tossed it and missed the litter bin. The can is green and shiny: "Put some play into your every day," it says. "Escape to a carefree world ... Don't grow up. 7UP." And underneath, in tiny print, the real info...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 4, 2013

'Okinawa bacteria' toxic legacy crosses continents, spans generations

Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City houses one of Vietnam's busiest maternity clinics, but hidden in a quiet corner, far from the wards of proud new mothers, is a room stacked floor to ceiling with every parent's nightmare.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2013

Comparing tobacco fight to the Opium Wars

The struggle against tobacco is not being won. It is being relocated from industrialized countries to the developing world.
COMMENTARY
Aug 1, 2012

Disease hindering the development of Africa

The high cost of treating certain diseases, most notably HIV/AIDS, when coupled with the indirect costs from lost worker productivity, is having a serious negative impact on African economies. More effort must go toward primary care, especially in rural areas, accompanied by activities to promote health,...
COMMENTARY
Jun 26, 2012

Demographic threat shadows a world power

For the last two decades, demographics and its effect on Russian society and future development prospects have been at the center of discussions on that country.
EDITORIALS
Nov 4, 2011

Ruling on 'mixed' treatment

If one combines medical treatment covered by public health insurance with medical treatment not covered by such insurance, using newly developed treatment methods or drugs not yet approved by the public health insurance system, in principle one has to pay all the costs for both types of treatment.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 23, 2011

Citizens' forum queries nuclear 'experts'

To whom does scientific debate belong?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 11, 2010

Japan, EU encouraged to share consumer safety info, knowhow

Protecting the safety and interests of consumers is essential in an age of rapid globalization, and both Japan and the European Union could benefit from exchanging practical information and experiences, journalists and experts agreed during a recent conference.
EDITORIALS
Mar 12, 2010

Exposure to tobacco smoke

Five years have passed since the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control went into effect (Feb. 27, 2005). The FCTC, the first treaty negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organization, has 168 parties and covers 86 percent of the world population. Nevertheless, tobacco products remain the...
EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 2009

State of the world's children

With the media paying so much attention to the casualties of the economic slowdown, it would be easy to overlook a vital report on the grave situation faced by the world's two most vulnerable classes of citizens — women and children in impoverished countries.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 4, 2008

WHO's sick manifesto for global recession

LONDON — The World Health Organization claimed this week that "social injustice is killing people on a grand scale." Its major report on the "Social Determinants of Health" concludes that social and economic inequality is a major global cause of disease and that only massive government intervention...
COMMENTARY
Aug 15, 2008

Ways of beating malaria without using DDT

NEW YORK — Malaria continues to be endemic in the developing world, causing more than 1 million deaths every year, mostly among children living in Sub-Saharan countries.
Japan Times
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
May 1, 2008

U.S. looking for 'accountability' at July summit

KYOTO — The United States' agenda for the upcoming Group of Eight summit in Toyako, Hokkaido, emphasizes health and development issues, making sure previous agreements are carried out in a publicly accountable way and guaranteeing that developing nations are part of a post-Kyoto Protocol treaty, said...
JAPAN
Feb 29, 2008

Smoking ban elusive despite WHO warning

The World Health Organization issued a report in February on the global tobacco epidemic, urging countries to enforce effective smoking bans in public places.
COMMENTARY
Jul 6, 2007

Low-cost investments to save children

NEW YORK — In the world today there are over 600 million children under 5 years old. They represent the best hopes for the planet, yet more than 5 million of them die every year as a result of environment-related diseases. Their deaths could be prevented by using low-cost and sustainable tools and...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 18, 2006

Preventing suicide and axing overtime pay is a risky mix

More than 30,000 people kill themselves each year in Japan, bestowing the country with the shameful honor of the highest suicide rate in the developed world. To deal with this reality, a group of lawmakers from across the political spectrum pushed an antisuicide bill through the Diet last month to force...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2006

Myths and misconceptions on Chernobyl

LONDON -- The 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident of April 26, 1986, is prompting a new wave of alarmist claims about its impact on human health and the environment. As has become a ritual on such commemorative occasions, the death toll is tallied in the hundreds of thousands, and fresh...
BUSINESS
Oct 27, 2005

How does the state want to care for the elderly?

Japan, with one of the world's oldest populations, is having increasing problems providing universal health care as each year there are fewer working people to pay for it.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2005

Sex inequality slows growth

NEW YORK -- A growing number of countries have adopted population and development policies to meet the health-care and education needs of women, including their reproductive health needs. In spite of that, gender inequality persists in most countries around the world. According to the United Nations...

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers