Published on August 13, 2019.
This article republishes a chapter first posted on February 1, 2018, introducing an essay by Masayuki Takayama.
It discusses the Asahi Shimbun’s reporting on the cervical cancer vaccine, Dr. Riko Muranaka’s criticism of that reporting, the international evaluation of HPV vaccination, and the pattern of encouraging state-compensation lawsuits seen in the reporting on Tamiflu and Iressa.
The article criticizes Asahi’s journalistic stance of repeatedly promoting the narrative that “the state is to blame.”

August 13, 2019.
The company creed of this newspaper is the MacArthur Constitution.
Firmly believing the idea in its preamble that “governments do bad things,” it has made a great fuss whenever there seemed to be even the slightest fault on the part of the state, and has incited those involved to seek state compensation.
Japan also, in response to this, began routine vaccination for girls of junior high school age and above, but then the Asahi Shimbun appeared.
The chapter I published on February 1, 2018, under that title, is now ranked 38th in Ameba’s official hashtag ranking for throat cancer.
The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
＊It is from an essay by Masayuki Takayama, the one and only journalist in the postwar world.＊
Around the time of its about-face reporting on Megumi, the Asahi Shimbun carried out another, even larger about-face report.
It was the article, “British scientific journal and others award prize to Dr. Riko Muranaka” on December 19.
Riko Muranaka is both a physician and a journalist.
It was already about five years ago.
The Asahi Shimbun made a fuss, saying “the cervical cancer vaccine is dangerous” and “it causes brain damage as a side effect,” and caused the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare to stop vaccination.
Muranaka pointed out that this was a major mistake, and further criticized by name the mouse experiment by Professor Ikeda Shuichi of Shinshu University, which claimed that “brain damage occurs because of the vaccine,” as extremely suspicious.
The cervical cancer virus, HPV, infects as many as ten thousand women a year, mainly women aged fifteen and over, through sexual intercourse, and one in three of them dies.
Recently, infection among men has also increased.
In tissue examinations of men who developed and died from throat cancer or anal cancer, this HPV has been detected at a high rate.
For this reason, the World Health Organization, WHO, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, and others have called for HPV vaccination, and in the United States not only women but also men receive the vaccination.
Japan also, in response to this, began routine vaccination for girls of junior high school age and above, but then the Asahi Shimbun appeared.
The company creed of this newspaper is the MacArthur Constitution.
Firmly believing the idea in its preamble that “governments do bad things,” it has made a great fuss whenever there seemed to be even the slightest fault on the part of the state, and has incited those involved to seek state compensation.
Drugs approved by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare have always been its target.
Recently, the influenza drug Tamiflu was targeted.
If a child who had been given the drug jumped out of a window on an upper floor, Asahi would incite a state-compensation lawsuit, saying, “Now, this is drug-induced harm,” and “Sue the state.”
The result was defeat in court.
Many actions such as jumping out of windows have been confirmed in states of high fever caused by influenza and other illnesses, what is called febrile delirium, and the shared view of the court and medical professionals was that it was not particularly the fault of Tamiflu.
Asahi knew this and yet made the patients’ families dance to its tune.
The same was true of Iressa, the special lung-cancer drug that does not work on white people but, for some reason, works on Japanese people.
The Asahi Shimbun made a fuss that deaths from interstitial pneumonia after administration were drug-induced harm, and the bereaved families of patients danced to Asahi’s flute of “the state is bad” and sought state compensation, but this too ended in defeat.
The common pattern was that everyone became unhappy, while only Asahi rejoiced that it had further fixed the image that “the state is bad.”
The origin of this cervical cancer vaccine uproar, too, was the Asahi Shimbun.
This article continues.