Did Dr. Abe Sell His Soul? The Defamation Case in Japan\u27s HIV-Tainted Blood Scandal

Is Japan a “paradise for the press?” Or is robust discourse on matters of public interest in Japan stifled because of defamation laws that heavily favor the plaintiff? Kamakami v. Sakurai, as one of the final events in Japan’s HIV-tainted blood scandal, is a provocative and illustrative chapter in the freedom of press and defamation law in Japan. In the early 1980s, hemophiliacs faced an HIV epidemic. When researchers concluded the HIV virus could be transferred by blood, they recognized that the blood products created from plasma pooled from hundreds of donors used to treat hemophiliacs could carry the HIV virus. Clinical trials soon proved that the HIV virus could be deactivated through a heating process. But in Japan, later investigations revealed delays in clinical trials and in recalls of potentially tainted products by both pharmaceutical companies and the government. Multiple prosecutions and convictions for criminal negligence followed this scandal. Freelance journalist Yoshiko Sakurai not only followed the investigations, but conducted her own. Based on her extensive research, she published a magazine article and a best-selling book on what has become known as the HIV-tainted blood scandal in Japan. In these publications, Sakurai accused Dr. Takeshi Abe, a highly respected hemophilia specialist and government advisor, of intentionally delaying the clinical trials the pharmaceutical companies commissioned him to conduct for personal monetary gain. Two years after the book’s publication, authorities arrested and prosecuted Dr. Abe for professional negligence and Dr. Abe filed a defamation case against Sakurai based on several statements in the article and book. The unanimous Supreme Court decision handed down in Sakurai’s favor, translated below, is significant for what is said, but also for what was left unsaid. Sakurai was ultimately justified in her journalism as the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in her favor. However, while it would not be unusual in a similar case in the United States to have commentary on the ruling supporting the freedom of the press, in this case the absence of such language is noteworthy, despite the constitutional right of freedom of the press in Japan having been an integral part of Sakurai’s case. In Japan, in a defamation case involving a matter of public interest, once the plaintiff establishes injury to reputation (or more accurately, honor), the burden shifts to the defendant to prove the truth of the statement, or adequate reason to believe the truth of the statement at the time of publication. Here, the Court chronicled in detail the advances in HIV-AIDS research, the actions of Dr. Abe during the clinical trials, and Sakurai’s research efforts prior to publication. Based on these findings, the Court then decided that there was adequate reason to believe the truth of Sakurai’s statements of fact in her publications, and that the statements constituted a valid opinion or commentary based on those facts. One can analyze this case in at least two different ways. On the one hand, Japanese defamation law, as is, does in fact provide sufficient protection for truly robust debate and criticism with an objective test applicable even to the most highly charged situations. Indeed, the Supreme Court could have labeled Sakurai’s statements as defamatory personal attacks instead of a validating them as opinions or commentaries. But the court did not consider the statements defamatory despite the damage to reputation because they were based on facts that could be believed to be true. As Sakurai said of this case after the Supreme Court handed down its decision: “[o]ne aspect of the case was that it threatened to restrict the freedom of reporting. This ruling is a joyous event not just for those involved in the HIV-AIDS scandal but for all involved in journalism in Japan.” On the other hand, Kawakami v. Sakurai also illustrates the potentially tenuous or limited nature of freedom of the press in Japan. “Harsh” critical journalism is comparatively uncommon in Japan, and commentators have argued that this may be a result of the legal standards on defamation. The Supreme Court did not use the broader constitutional rights of freedom of press and freedom of conscience to justify the statements of opinion in its analysis. Instead, the fight to justify such statements was arduous, and victory was uncertain: Sakurai lost at the appellate level on the exact same legal test she won on in the Supreme Court. Seen from this perspective, Kawakami v. Sakurai raises doubts as to whether Japanese defamation law alone adequately protects journalists who criticize distinguished members of the public

A Validation Study to Optimize Literature Searching for Interprofessional Education Studies in PubMed

Objective As there is exponential growth in the publication of interprofessional education (IPE) research studies, it has become more difficult to quickly find relevant papers and stay abreast of all the latest research. Accordingly, this poster addresses the development, evaluation, and validation of search hedges for IPE studies in PubMed, to improve future access to and synthesis of IPE research. The comprehensive, validated sets of search terms provide expert guidance to make it easier for educators and researchers to find IPE publications. Methods The search hedges were created for PubMed using relative recall methodology; the research process followed the guidance of previous search hedge and search filter validation research in creating a gold standard set of relevant references from papers included in high quality IPE systematic reviews and then testing the search terms against this reference set using relative recall to validate the search hedges\u27 sensitivity. In this gold standard set there are 267 papers that were included in 15 systematic reviews. The IPE search hedges were created using combinations of keywords and MeSH terms, with each term tested for search performance and the searches peer reviewed by a librarian and by an IPE subject expert. Results There were two best performing hedges: one with lower sensitivity and high precision, best for efficient literature searching, and one with high recall and lower precision, for comprehensive literature searching. The first, narrower search hedge is better suited for quick information retrieval while the second, broader search hedge is better for literature reviews and evidence syntheses. Conclusions These validated sets of search terms will make it easier for scholars to find relevant IPE research and more efficiently apply it to their research and practice

A Study of Metal-Metal Bonds and Multiconfiguration Pair-Density Functional Theory

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. July 2017. Major: Chemistry. Advisor: Laura Gagliardi. 1 computer file (PDF); xii, 382 pages.The electronic structure and properties of various homo- and hetero-bimetallic complexes, which are relevant for small molecule activation, are discussed based on experimental and computational methods, including wave function theory and density functional theory. Due to their multiconfigurational nature, the theoretical challenges associated with transition metal complexes are also analyzed. A new method, Multiconfiguration Pair-Density Functional Theory (MC-PDFT), that is able to combine a multiconfigurational wave function with a density functional is introduced as a new way to treat these multiconfigurational systems and results on a wide variety of systems show, in general, good agreement with CASPT2. One of the fundamental quantities in MC-PDFT is the on-top pair density. An analytic solution of the on-top pair density is presented for H2 and as well as its relevance in understanding bond breaking

“MORE JAPANESE THAN JAPANESE”: SUBJECTIVATION IN THE AGE OF BRAND NATIONALISM AND THE INTERNET

Today, modern technologies and the rapid circulation of information across geographic boundaries are said to be making the nation-state less relevant to daily life. In contrast, this dissertation argues that national boundary maintenance is increasingly made more relevant not in spite of such technologies, but precisely because of them. Indeed, processes of circulation are themselves making and re-making such boundaries rather than erasing them, while states simultaneously react to contain the perceived threats of globalization and to capitalize on the sale of their “cultural” commodities through nation branding. For American otaku, or Japan fans, internet technologies and the consumption of Japanese media like videogames and anime are quintessential global flows from within which they first articulate a desire for Japan. Increasingly, some make the very real decision to leave home and settle in Japan, although scholars have suggested otaku are unable to understand the “real” Japan. Once there, however, the Japanese state’s ongoing nation branding policies, along with immigration control and patterns of everyday interactions with Japanese citizens, marginalize even long-term residents as perpetual visitors. Building on the work of Foucault, I seek to understand how notions of national “of courseness,” which fix Japaneseness as naturally homogeneous and impenetrable, subjectivize American fans. Drawing on 12 months of full time participant observation with otaku living in Tokyo, along with 18 months of part time follow-up research, diachronic interviews with Americans in the US and Japan, and extensive textual analysis of all things “Japanese,” this work contrasts the purported deterritorializing promise of online communications and the withering of the relevance of the modern nation-state, with the national boundary making work that these otaku migrants participate in, both online and off. Once in Japan, otaku themselves actively support Japan's nation branding efforts by teaching English and producing the very cultural commodities that motivated their migration in the first place, as they increasingly codify what Japaneseness is for other “foreigners.” At the same time, otaku migrants further reproduce Japanese national identity through accepting and affirming their status as non-Japanese, and through the reinscription of these very boundaries onto other otaku

Virtual Reference at U.S. Academic Libraries: A Website Analysis

This study describes a website content analysis of virtual reference services at all U.S. academic libraries in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The study was conducted to determine the technology, terminology, visibility, accessibility, and design elements of virtual reference programs currently provided by academic libraries to their patrons. Analysis revealed that virtual reference is a widely popular service at ARL member libraries, though its application varies from institution to institution

Many Episode Learning in a Modular Embodied Agent via End-to-End Interaction

In this work we give a case study of an embodied machine-learning (ML) powered agent that improves itself via interactions with crowd-workers. The agent consists of a set of modules, some of which are learned, and others heuristic. While the agent is not "end-to-end" in the ML sense, end-to-end interaction is a vital part of the agent's learning mechanism. We describe how the design of the agent works together with the design of multiple annotation interfaces to allow crowd-workers to assign credit to module errors from end-to-end interactions, and to label data for individual modules. Over multiple automated human-agent interaction, credit assignment, data annotation, and model re-training and re-deployment, rounds we demonstrate agent improvement

Essential services of clinical librarians in academic and health care settings: A cross-sectional study: Postprint

This paper provides a comprehensive summary of clinical librarian service models in the US, Canada, and the UK from a cross-sectional study. An online survey received 182 responses from clinical librarians in hospital (62%), academic (26%), and other (10%) libraries. These clinical librarians shared the services they provide, patrons they work with, and their perceptions of the value they add to clinical environments. Overall, this study quantifies the services offered most frequently by clinical librarians, the services felt to be most valuable, and the variety of health care clientele whom clinical librarians serve. These findings have implications for current clinical librarians, libraries and health care institutions, and for those who may become clinical librarians in the future. The version of record is published in Medical Reference Services Quarterly, Volume 40, Issue 2, 2021 and is available at the following URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02763869.2021.191257