Promoting health in American-occupied Japan: Resistance to allied public health measures, 1945-1952

S. Nishimura

American Journal of Public Health, 2009, vol. 99, issue 8, 1364-1375

Abstract: As soon as the authority of the Public Health and Welfare Section (PHW) of the Supreme Commander for Allied Powers waned in May 1951, the Japanese government overturned several measures it had implemented. Although the PHW contributed greatly toward improving public health conditions, not all of its activities were models of cooperative success. Many Japanese perceived some measures-terminated pensions for wounded Japanese veterans, lack of support for segregated orphanages for mixed-race children, and suppression of Japanese atomic bomb medical reports-as promoting US national interest at the expense of Japanese public health needs. Similarly, the PHW's upgrade of nursing education and separation of the professions of medicine and pharmacy were reversed because neither professionals nor the public saw these measures as urgent. Their reinstitution toward the end of the twentieth century suggests that the progressive measures were sound, but broke too sharply with Japanese tradition and were enforced prematurely.

Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2008.150532_8

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2008.150532

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