History of Public Health Crises in Japan

Abstract

In Japan, a number of serious public health crises involving environmental pollution, food-borne diseases, and health hazards due to pharmaceuticals (i.e., "Yakugai") have occurred in the past 50 years. Based on the literature, we summarize the initial investigations and the subsequent measures. Some common points emerge: (1) prolonged cause identification, (2) lack of countermeasures after the cause was identified, and (3) discrimination against victims and they contributed to spreading the damage. We identify lack of corporate ethics and ill-timed disclosure of information as the principal problems in Japan's crisis-management systems. Defects in information gathering were common to all of the cases, thus we suggest necessary corrective measures, such as the establishment of a new reporting system for health hazard-related information.

Strawberry fields forever? Urban agriculture in developed countries: a review

“…Concerns about food security were elevated by a series of food-related scandals, such as corporate falsification of labels and food poisoning, and both government and the public began to campaign for food reform (Imamura et al 2007;Kimura 2011). Since the mid-1990s, there has been a movement to re-localize food production in the city through the chisan-chisho ("locally produced, locally consumed") initiative (Kimura and Nishiyama 2008).…”

“…Cadmium contamination is especially prevalent in Japan due to its long history of metal mining and factory work dating back to the Meiji Era, from 1868 to 1912 (Arao et al 2010). The itai-itai disease, a type of chronic cadmium poisoning, emerged in Japan around 1912, but the cause of the disease remained unknown until 1961, when a doctor detected large amounts of cadmium in the cremation ashes of a patient who died of itai-itai (Imamura et al 2007). Eventually, the link was made to locally grown rice irrigated with cadmium-contaminated river water from the Kamioka Copper Mine (Imamura et al 2007;Arao et al 2010).…”

“…The itai-itai disease, a type of chronic cadmium poisoning, emerged in Japan around 1912, but the cause of the disease remained unknown until 1961, when a doctor detected large amounts of cadmium in the cremation ashes of a patient who died of itai-itai (Imamura et al 2007). Eventually, the link was made to locally grown rice irrigated with cadmium-contaminated river water from the Kamioka Copper Mine (Imamura et al 2007;Arao et al 2010). Dietary consumption of rice was and still is almost exclusively the source of cadmium intake, and given the government's promotion of rice as the meal staple, clearly, the contamination issue needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency (Tsukahara et al 2003;Ikeda et al 2004Ikeda et al , 2006.…”

Analysis of the success rates of new drug development in Japan and the lag behind the US

“…In a recent study, launch delay in Japan was associated with fewer post-marketing safety risks in the Japanese market [14]. This type of advantage in drug safety may also strengthen the incentive to be followers rather than firstmovers, especially in Japan where both drug companies and customers are very sensitive to safety problems due to serious drug safety scandals in past decades [15].…”

Consumer reactions to risk information on bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Japan

“…In Japan, concern over various foodborne diseases has caused public health crises at different times in the past [3]. The BSE incident in Japan in 2001 was, however, considerably different from those associated with these earlier incidents because it created an unusually large panic among the general population-even though there had been no deaths or cases of illness caused by BSE in Japan at that time.…”