Author: Masahiro Kami Executive Director, Medical Governance Research Institute Tokyo, Japan Editor: Tetsuya Tanimoto More than seven years after the Fukushima nuclear accident, our medical team has continued to work in the disaster-stricken areas; we have published various research articles based on our own activities at these sites. In March 2018, one of my colleagues, Dr. Tomohiro Morita, of Fukushima’s Soma Central Hospital, published a research article in the journal PLO

Author: Mariko Morita Editor: Naoko Matsumoto I have a one-year-old son, and he is recently finishing breastfeeding. While he is in nursery school, he usually drinks frozen breast milk and formula after a meal or at teatime. I myself don’t like drinking cow’s milk with food, and so I have never needed mine at the mealtime. However, almost all nursery schools and elementary schools provide cow’s milk to children. One plausible reason is the School Lunch Program Act in Japan.

Author: Michiko Sakane Affiliation: Sakane M Clinic, Tsukuba City, Japan Editors: Moe Hirohara, Akihiko Ozaki Throughout 2017, there was prominent media coverage concerning deaths of pregnant women in Japan. I assume this was triggered by the press conference given by Dr. Isamu Ishiwata at the end of 2016, referring to the deaths of two women after deliveries at the same hospital in Ehime prefecture in Western Japan. His talk was covered by Yomiuri Shimbun, one of the biggest

Author: Deepika Shrestha Editors: Moe Hirohara, Yuki Senoo On the morning on Thursday 30 November 2017, I visited The New Otani Hotel, a traditional hotel in Japan, and the Kanagawa Cancer Center in Yokohama City later in the afternoon. Besides all of the above, I also saw the sea for the first time in my life that evening. Thus, this rainy Thursday, as I approached my 28th birthday, became a memorable day for me. At The New Otani Hotel At 7:30 a.m., Ms. Asaka Higuchi, a rese

Author: Emi Yokoyama, RN, MA Editor: Tetsuya Tanimoto, MD Introduction The number of people suffering from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) has been increasing worldwide, and Japan is not an exception. For example, the reported annual number of patients with syphilis in Japan was 4,559 in 2016, 3.7 times more than in 2013. Among various STIs, the most common is a bacterial infection called chlamydia. The reported number of patients with chlamydia in Japan was approximat