Shakai Hoken
Companies in Japan which contribute to the national social insurance (Shakai Hoken) program, which is almost all of them, are required once a year to subject their employees to a medical check rendered by a local contractor. For newcomers to Japan these checks are almost quaintly primitive, both in testing technique and as an invasion of privacy. At least, that’s how we feel as we line up our urine samples next to our colleagues’ in a converted meeting-cum-samples room! An army barracks in Samawa probably offers more privacy…
Probably the worst part of a yearly checkup, though, is the barium drink in preparation for a TB chest X-ray. The drink tastes foul, stains your lips white, and is probably really bad for your health. But, when confronted with all your Japanese work colleagues meekly gulping the stuff down, you don’t really feel like bucking the system.
So it comes of some interest that researchers at Oxford University in the UK have announced that the Japanese as a nation have a 300% higher rate of cancer caused by excessive exposure to preventive X-rays than do people in other countries. The researchers said that 3.2% of all Japanese cancer patients appear to have contracted the disease because of excessive X-ray exposure. This figure was found by testing cancer patients up to 25 years of age and assessing likely causes.
From Terrie.com. Thanks England. At least someone is looking after Japan…
August 5th, 2004 at 3:10 pm
Barium drinks? How nostalgic! Somebody misinformed your writer about their purpose, though – they are for checking the stomach for cancer, ulcers and so on. barium is in a foaming medium that distends the stomach wall so it is easy to x-ray. Every year after turning 40 I gulped mine down, holding my nose, then turned like a chicken on a rotisserie as the platform on which I was lying tipped me up and down. As it has been known for years that the H-pylori bacteria is the main cause of stomach ulcers, leading to stomach cancer, it would be far better for breath- and blood-tests to be done for H-pylori before subjecting any more employees to radiation! The TB x-rays were separate, anyway, so I used to get quite a dose each year until I left Japan.