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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2006

Adolescent suicide: a serious problem in every country

NEW YORK -- It happens every day, and with alarming frequency. Adolescent suicide is a serious problem in every country, and Japan is no exception. An estimated 30,000 Japanese of all ages kill themselves each year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Apr 22, 2006

Peter Bernick

"Now that I have been involved with Tokyo English Life Line and gotten some experience in the mental-health field, I realize that this is very much what I want to do long-term, and in Japan," said Peter Bernick.
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2006

Enhanced H5N1 response planned

The health ministry has decided to designate the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza as an infectious disease, officials said.
EDITORIALS
Feb 25, 2006

Building a suicide safety net

Every year, slightly more than 30,000 people kill themselves in Japan. Compared with other countries, the situation is particularly grim. The nation's suicide rate, calculated in terms of the number of suicides per 100,000 people, stands at 25.3 -- compared with 38.7 in Russia, 17.5 in France, 13.5 in...
JAPAN
Dec 30, 2005

Rare-disease sufferers want drugs fast-tracked

, a rare, life-threatening disease caused by a deficiency in a lysosomal enzyme. The hereditary, progressive illness causes mental retardation, poor vision and stiffness in the joints. Tomoki's only chance of getting better is to have a bone marrow or blood transplant from an umbilical cord, but his...
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2005

3.16% cut planned for medical fees

The government and the ruling coalition agreed Sunday to slash the medical services tariff -- which sets the fees paid by public health insurance to doctors and pharmacists -- by a record 3.16 percent in fiscal 2006.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Nov 30, 2005

'Secret' dolphin slaughter defies protests

Japan's annual slaughter of thousands of dolphins began Oct. 8 in the traditional whaling town of Taiji on the Kii Peninsula of Honshu's Wakayama Prefecture. These "drive fisheries" triggered demonstrations, held under the "Japan Dolphin Day" banner, in 28 countries. The protests went almost entirely...
JAPAN
Nov 10, 2005

Insurance for antismoking pitch

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare proposed Wednesday to cover doctors' antismoking counseling services with public health insurance schemes as part of efforts to stem the nation's ballooning medical costs, ministry officials said.
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2005

Japan Tobacco to challenge planned antismoking measures

In rare move, Japan Tobacco Inc. will challenge on Tuesday a government plan to introduce smoking restrictions.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2005

Diabetes: Asia's silent killer

You could be forgiven for thinking communicable illnesses, like HIV/AIDS, and the newly feared bird flu, are the major disease threats for Asia in the next and coming decades.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2005

Rich-poor divide poses unrelenting threat

NEW YORK -- According to the just released U.N. report "The Inequality Predicament," increasing poverty and the growing gap between the rich and poor will be major threats to developing coun- tries' peace and stability. The report, prepared by the United Nations' Economic and Social Affairs Department,...
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2005

Mesothelioma risk known in '78

The government was aware that inhaling even a small amount of asbestos could cause mesothelioma, an incurable cancer, more than a decade before Japan started to curb asbestos use in 1989, according to a 1978 report by a labor ministry expert panel obtained by Kyodo News.
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2005

Ministries to seek complete asbestos halt

The health and trade ministries will jointly ask 18 industry groups to stop all use of asbestos as soon as possible, sources said Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 18, 2005

Japan's quiet time bomb

Health problems linked to asbestos, which was used in large quantities as heat-insulation material for buildings during the period of Japan's high economic growth, are spreading among workers who inhaled the substance in the past. One enterprise after another has released lists of workers who have died...
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2005

Hundreds of deaths spur ministry plan to ban all asbestos use by 2008

The health ministry said Friday it plans to ban all use of asbestos by 2008 after recent announcements that hundreds of workers at various companies have died from diseases related to the toxic unburnable mineral.
JAPAN
Jun 9, 2005

Hansen's specimens urged buried

Hansen's disease sufferers and their supporters have demanded that Tokyo apologize and bury the bodies of babies and fetuses that have been kept in specimen jars after being taking from women held in quarantine by the state in the decades after the war.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Apr 17, 2005

A nation asleep at the wheel

Train carriages filled with white-collar workers dozing off on each other's shoulders are one of the most striking sights in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 29, 2005

Margaret Powell

Headquartered in Reading, England, GAP Activity Projects is a nonprofit organization that arranges gap year activities for young people. In the U.K., the gap year is offered between high school and university. GAP was originated in 1972 by a teacher who knew that some students were eager for overseas...
EDITORIALS
Jan 28, 2005

Better use of talented people

Ms. Chong Hyang Gyun, a second-generation South Korean resident who is a public-health nurse for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, has been fighting a legal battle the past decade to take up a managerial post. The 54-year-old civil servant has argued that the metro government's rejection of her request...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Nov 13, 2004

Tsutomu Kasai

Dartmoor in southwestern England is an extensive national park of open skies and wild moorland. Granite rocks, peat bogs and heather characterize the land, where wild ponies run free. When Okehampton, a small town on the edge of Dartmoor, was planning a new hospital, garden designer Tsutomu Kasai of...
EDITORIALS
Oct 25, 2004

Subsidy reforms under siege

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's initiative to give local governments more fiscal freedom is meeting stiff resistance from within his own administration. He wants to achieve his goal by cutting state subsidies. To make up for subsidy cuts, the central government needs to shift more of its tax-collecting...
JAPAN
Oct 14, 2004

Socially withdrawn people come out of hiding with private group's help

Akiko did not step out of her house once between the ages of 15 and 22.
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2004

Bureaucrat admits taking JDA bribes

A former member of the Central Social Insurance Medical Council pleaded guilty Friday to accepting bribes from Japan Dental Association executives between 2001 and 2003 in return for providing them favors.
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2004

Dental body execs admit ministry bribes

Three former Japan Dental Association executives pleaded guilty Monday to bribing and entertaining two members of a health ministry advisory panel between 2001 and 2003 to pressure them into helping raise the fees patients pay to dentists.
JAPAN
Jul 28, 2004

Japan set to aid A-bomb survivors in North Korea

Japan plans to support North Korean survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, health minister Chikara Sakaguchi said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 27, 2004

Middle East policy banks on destruction

NEW YORK -- The decision by the Bush campaign to enlist thousands of religious congregations in the United States to distribute information and register voters for the November presidential election shows how close the connection has become between politics and religion, a situation not anticipated by...
JAPAN
May 5, 2004

Dental group wined and dined ministry officials

The Japan Dental Association entertained health ministry officials at expensive restaurants and gave them money described as taxi fees, sources said Tuesday.

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