2024/03/14

But if the government said such a thing, how much of an uproar would the Asahi create?
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s column in the latter pages of the Shukan Shincho released today.
This article, too, demonstrates that he is a journalist without equal in the postwar world.
It is essential reading not only for the Japanese people but also for people worldwide.
Asahi-Induced Cancer
[Translator’s note: The English heading “Asahi Nature Cancer” is unclear. This is a provisional rendering.]
The Asahi Shimbun disliked everything the Abe administration did, down to the way it raised and lowered its chopsticks.
So when the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare began HPV vaccinations for girls in the sixth grade and above, it immediately tried to undermine them.
HPV causes ten thousand cases of uterine cancer every year, and one-third of those affected die.
Nevertheless, the newspaper opposed vaccination on the grounds that “the vaccine has serious adverse reactions.”
Since then, as many as 235 articles were published warning that vaccination would leave people physically disabled.
This encouraged parents saying, “Something has gone wrong with my child,” to form a liaison group and press the health minister to meet those reporting harm.
Accompanied by reporter Tomoko Saito, six girls who said they had been harmed also attended the meeting, but when they saw the health minister’s face, they all began exhibiting abnormal symptoms at once.
One girl’s eyes rolled back, another lost strength in her limbs, and another convulsed.
In the seventeenth-century Salem witch trials in Massachusetts, when girls simultaneously rolled their eyes and convulsed, this was taken as evidence of witchcraft, and nineteen people were hanged.
It was the same.
Some people sensed something contrived, just as in Salem.
In fact, the girl who had the seizure recovered after receiving an intravenous saline infusion.
But if the government said such a thing, how much of an uproar would the Asahi create?
The health minister remained silent, Tomoko Saito prevailed, and vaccination was stopped.
Japan turned its back on the eradication of HPV that the world had been pursuing, just as it had done with polio.
The WHO was astonished.
But there are conscientious journalists.
Naoko Iwanaga of the Yomiuri Shimbun cited the fact that three thousand people die each year and protested against the Asahi’s political use of HPV, saying, “Ignoring this is tantamount to genocide.”
The “angry parents” reacted.
Protests flooded the Yomiuri, and Iwanaga left the newspaper because the company could no longer protect her.
With Iwanaga removed, Riko Muranaka would be the only person left to challenge the Asahi.
She also criticized a university professor who distorted the facts to suit the Asahi and continued, alone, to emphasize the importance of vaccination.
But the Asahi insidiously suppressed her statements.
Just as she was about to lose heart, help arrived from an unexpected quarter.
She was awarded the Maddox Prize, supported by the British scientific journal Nature.
The prize is reportedly given to “people who stand up to authorities spreading misinformation and tell the truth.” (The Guardian)
The Daily Mail was more direct.
“She fought against the false claim that vaccines destroy the brain〈made by the Asahi〉.”
Only the Sankei Shimbun and one local newspaper reported Muranaka’s award.
The Asahi ignored it completely.
But when the Asahi was identified as a “malicious newspaper” by the world’s informed consensus, including the World Health Organization, it was understandably shaken.
[Translator’s note: The preceding English source sentence had a confused subject and structure, so this passage was translated according to the context.]
Tomoko Saito, who had led the campaign to undermine vaccination, was also silenced.
A search for her bylined articles shows that they have all been deleted.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, no longer needing to be afraid, announced the resumption of vaccination three years after Muranaka received the award.
Astonishingly, under the headline “HPV Vaccine Recommendations Resumed,” the Asahi calmly wrote, “The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare decided to resume vaccination because there is no connection or concern linking the vaccine to adverse reactions.”
Thus, vaccination, which had been halted because of the Asahi’s attempt to bring down Abe, resumed for the first time in eight years.
The vaccine’s name makes it sound as though it concerns a cancer that affects only women, but men can develop it too.
Indeed, men transmit the infection through sexual intercourse.
If a man belongs to the LGB community, he develops anal cancer; otherwise, he develops pharyngeal cancer.
[Translator’s note: This directly translates the statement in the supplied English text. The explanation that sexual orientation determines which type of cancer a person develops is medically inaccurate.]
It is transmitted through oral sex.
Then, in a recent column, Asahi Shimbun editorial board member Yohei Goto reported that he had developed pharyngeal cancer and nearly died.
His lymph nodes had swollen.
An examination revealed HPV-related pharyngeal cancer.
Severe pain persisted after its removal.
He wondered how this could happen to him as a man.
That men can also become infected is a basic fact about HPV.
Asahi reporters do not know this because the Asahi used the HPV vaccine to bring down Abe and suppressed necessary reporting.
I would not go so far as to call it poetic justice, but if you want someone to resent, resent your own newspaper.