How can we employ nurses in the meantime?
Yes, really!
Japan, so far ahead in many areas, is clearly bringing up the rear in Covid vaccination.
It is also relying on foreign supplies, having secured -- in theory at least -- 140 million vaccine doses from US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Although there seem to be problems here too.
But why isn't Japan's high-tech medical sector just churning out its own vaccine supplies?
The reasons are several, but mainly this is due to a lack of political will. What little political will exists in Japan tends to come from the big corporations that "finance" the politicians, and Japan's medical sector is somewhat ambivalent about vaccines.
One problem is too much protection.
Japan's med sector is old-fashioned and inefficient, with too many small companies that are insulated from that nasty thing called "competition" and also supported by government subsidies.
This cosy arrangement also means that these companies are too small and unwilling to take big bets on "Research and Development." Elsewhere in the world, rampant competition has created much larger companies that can take big bets on R&D. This has led to four massive pharmaceutical giants dominating 70% of the global market for vaccines.
Japan's med sector is old-fashioned and inefficient, with too many small companies that are insulated from that nasty thing called "competition" and also supported by government subsidies.
This cosy arrangement also means that these companies are too small and unwilling to take big bets on "Research and Development." Elsewhere in the world, rampant competition has created much larger companies that can take big bets on R&D. This has led to four massive pharmaceutical giants dominating 70% of the global market for vaccines.
Political will is also lacking because the Japanese government, which used to take the lead in developing vaccines in the past, got burned by a series of lawsuits in the 1990s for the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine. The vaccine was blamed, probabaly unfairly, for deaths and autism.
In 2003, the government and a research center affiliated with Osaka University were forced to pay a total of 155 million yen to the families of two children who died or suffered side effects after receiving the MMR vaccine.
The court ruled that the death of the son of a couple in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, and the serious brain damage suffered by 13-year-old Hana Ueno, from Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture, were caused by the MMR vaccine. It ruled, however, that the child of a couple in Hyogo Prefecture died after contracting influenza.
Thousands more sued the government, mainly for cases of autism, although cases of autism continued to rise even after the vaccine was withdrawn, probably with the late age of the mothers being the real contributing factor.
Dr. Tetsuo Nakayama, a project professor at Kitasato Institute for Life Sciences and director of the Japanese Society of Clinical Virology explained the caution felt by the government:
“It’s not that Japan lacks the development capability. But after the government losses, the government did not actively propel the development of new vaccines. That created a vaccine gap that lasted for more than 10 years, during which Japan was way behind other countries in introducing vaccines for children. The lack of initiative from the government led to few financial resources and human resources to develop vaccines,” he says, “which inevitably slows the pace of development.”
Japan is not expected to produce its own vaccines until at least 2022. Until then it will have to rely on other countries and a draconian lock-down on international travel that has echoes of Sakoku (鎖国, "closed country"), Japan's earlier isolationist history during the Edo period.
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