Japan is to permit the sale of emergency contraceptives without prescription on a trial basis, weeks after it approved the abortion pill.
The move, reported by media yesterday, would bring Japan into line with dozens of countries where the morning-after pill is already available over the counter (OTC).
Current rules require women, including those who have been sexually assaulted, to attend a clinic or hospital for an emergency contraceptive prescription.
Photo: AFP
The drugs are said to be most effective if they are taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex.
A Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare panel approved the sale through March next year at pharmacies staffed by qualified pharmacists who are able to coordinate with nearby obstetrics and gynecology clinics, Kyodo News reported.
The decision to allow over-the-counter sales marks a major policy shift, and comes soon after it approved the abortion pill in April.
Previously, only surgical abortions were available, in the first nine weeks of pregnancy.
Campaigners say the long wait for Japan to approve the abortion pill, which had long been available in more than 70 nations, reflects the low priority the country’s male-dominated parliament and medical community give to women’s sexual health.
Japan took 40 years to approve oral contraceptives, in 1999, but only six months to approve the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra.
Emergency contraceptives, which have an efficacy rate of about 80 percent, are available without a prescription in about 90 countries, the ministry said.
The trial sale enjoys strong public support.
When a health ministry panel invited the public to submit comments last year, more than 90 percent of the 46,312 responses were in favor of pharmacy sales, public broadcaster NHK said.
In 2017, the panel stopped short of approving over-the-counter sales amid fears that the drugs’ easy availability could encourage “irresponsible” behavior.
Medical professionals have called for the drugs to be made more accessible, saying they would increase options for rape survivors and potentially reduce the number of expensive surgical abortions.
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS