Search - health

 
 
JAPAN
Jun 21, 1999

Stricter dioxin standard urged for biggest industrial emitter

The government should drop the maximum tolerable daily intake of dioxin to 4 picograms per kilogram of body weight, a government advisory panel said in a report released Monday.
JAPAN
Jul 16, 1998

Chinese woman wins insurance suit against Musashino

In a ruling that overturned a Welfare Ministry practice, a Chinese woman who had overstayed her visa won the right to obtain a National Health Insurance card Thursday in a civil suit lodged against Musashino City.
EDITORIALS
Jun 9, 2023

My Number glitches undermine Japan’s digital future

Japan's My Number card system was meant to usher in a digital society, but the effort has been plagued with problems and fallen far short of expectations.
JAPAN
Apr 2, 2023

Japan's largest lake used to be a cesspool. Now it’s a vision of a sustainable future.

Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake, has long been a center of flourishing agriculture and cultural progress, but it's also been at the center of countless environmental crises.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 21, 2023

COVID hasn’t taught the world how to beat the next deadly virus

Elimination measures were once the gold standard for dealing with deadly new viruses. But China’s extreme 'zero-COVID' policy and its abrupt reversal has cast doubts over the approach.
Japan Times
PODCAST / deep dive
Jul 12, 2023

Japan is about to release 1.3 million tons of Fukushima wastewater. Should we be concerned?

Environmental journalist Mara Budgen joins the podcast to discuss Japan’s plan to discharge millions of tons of wastewater from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant into the ocean.
JAPAN / Science & Health / FOCUS
Jul 12, 2023

Challenges persist as scandals plague Japan’s generic drug push

The aftermath of a series of manufacturing scandals is leading to shortages of the more affordable alternatives to brand-name medicine.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jul 10, 2023

Japan's fertility rate is likely even lower than it seems

The official statistic doesn't include foreign mothers, meaning children born to them and Japanese men are treated as if they were born to Japanese women.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jul 6, 2023

South Korean doctors flee pediatrics as low birth rate makes funding unviable

Fewer children combined with a failure of the insurance system to adapt to the situation has left the sector starved of resources, with specialists shunning a field they think has no future.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jan 20, 2023

COVID catastrophe looms for China’s New Year travelers

Travelers, from migrant workers to college students to educated urban elites, risk carrying the highly-infectious omicron strain with them to COVID-naive swaths of rural China.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jan 18, 2023

In China, doctors say they are discouraged from citing COVID on death certificates

Some relatives of people who have died with COVID-19 say the disease did not appear on their death certificates.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 29, 2022

U.S. to impose China COVID testing as virus surge jangles global nerves

Beijing's sudden abandonment of tough measures to contain the coronavirus — and surge in virus cases — has caused jitters around the world.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 28, 2022

U.S. considers COVID-prevention measures for travelers from China

U.S. officials said the government is concerned about the surge of cases in China, and has raised questions about the transparency of data the country is reporting about the virus.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 25, 2022

China's Zhejiang province has 1 million daily COVID-19 cases, expected to double

The COVID-19 infection peak is expected to arrive earlier in Zhejiang, China, during which the daily infection number will rise to up to 2 million, according to the authorities.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Dec 17, 2022

COVID projections predict over 1 million deaths in China through 2023

As China begins to experience a spike in infections, fears are growing that coronavirus cases could sweep across its 1.4 billion population during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 12, 2022

China’s rapid COVID reversal sparks whiplash as cases surge

Scenes of disruption are most visible in Beijing, where anecdotal evidence suggest the caseload is many times the government's tally.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 3, 2022

WHO warns drop in COVID-19 alertness could create deadly new variant

Lapses in strategies to tackle COVID-19 this year continue to create the perfect conditions for a deadly new variant to emerge, as parts of China witness a rise in infections.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Oct 15, 2022

Jeremy Hunt brought in from the cold to be U.K.'s new finance minister

Britain's onetime top diplomat is named new finance minister, the latest senior government role for for a man regarded by many in his Conservative Party as a safe pair of hands.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 29, 2022

Top AI guru is helping retool popular Japanese snacks for Ezaki Glico

Junichi Hasegawa's primary job at the firm is to help find the perfect blend of taste and nutrition through massive data harvesting and machine learning.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health
Aug 30, 2022

Japan OKs third Pfizer shot for children and AstraZeneca COVID treatment

Children between the ages of 5 and 11 will be able to get the booster shot five months or more after they received their second dose.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 26, 2022

More data needed before ocean release of Fukushima water

There is insufficient scientific data to support release of contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 15, 2022

Abortion at sea? Advocates in the U.S. get creative to protect access

To solve the problem of abortion access, one obstetrician-gynecologist is seeking inspiration from an unlikely source: riverboat casinos.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 13, 2022

WHO warns COVID-19 pandemic 'nowhere near over'

'The virus is running freely and countries are not effectively managing the disease burden based on their capacity,' the organization's leader said.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 12, 2022

Smart countryside: How tech can help revive Japan’s rural regions

Changes in work patterns wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic are already drawing some remote workers to the countryside.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2022

COVID-19 tracker: Tokyo logs 9,716 new cases as upward trend continues

According to the metropolitan government, the seven-day average of new infections in the capital stood at 6,746.4, up 129% from a week before.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 25, 2022

U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade abortion-rights ruling

The court voted along ideological lines, 6-3, to uphold Mississippi's ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and 5-4 to go further and explicitly overturn Roe.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 2, 2022

Hong Kong backpedals on home quarantine for COVID subvariants

The reversion to centralized quarantine runs counter to recent commentary from Hong Kong health experts that the public shouldn't be too worried about new omicron subvariants.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 27, 2022

Uvalde had prepared for school shootings. It did not stop the rampage.

The carnage has renewed a decades-old debate about how to end the horror of U.S. school shootings, with many political leaders once again calling for heightened school security measures.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
May 18, 2022

North Korea not seeking help for COVID-19 ‘crisis,’ aid groups say

Pyongyang has reportedly appeared to have sent airplanes to China, its biggest benefactor, in the past few days to pick up medical supplies.
JAPAN
May 18, 2022

Kishida takes aim at Japan's primary care doctor system in response to pandemic

After COVID-19 patients were turned away from local physicians, the government began considering reforms to how private practice doctors operate.

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