June 2
1999 The Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare approved use of low-dosage birth control pills. The drugs are expected to become available in Japan in August 1999. The Ministry has been considering the matter for 34 years. Japan was the last United Nations member to permit the use of oral contraceptives. Approval of 16 low-hormone dosage pills came after several months of public criticism of the speedy manner in which the male impotency drug Viagra was approved for use. Viagra was approved in January 1999 after just six months and critics argued this starkly revealed the male-bias in the Ministry.
In 1966 the Ministry approved use of high-dosage pills for treatment of menstruation problems. An estimated 200,000 Japanese women were believed to be using these pills, including some who used them for the purpose of birth control. Some women have used low-potency pills illegally brought into Japan. For the last three decades the Ministry has argued birth control pills posed significant and needless health dangers and that reliance on condoms helped Japan avoid the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Critics believe that the Ministry also sought to avoid approving any contraceptive which might further lower Japan's already low birth rate. The Ministry's Council on Population Problems reported that the total fertility rate (the average number of births per woman) was 1.42 in 1995, significantly below the population replacement threshold of 2.08. Click here to see the Ministry's "white paper" on this problem.
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported that doctors are not to prescribe the new pills to women over age 35 or to women who smoke 15 or more cigarettes a day. In 1987, the Ministry authorized a test on 5,000 women and Japanese pharmaceutical companies formerly applied for approval in 1990. A Japan Times news summary suggests that use of the low-dosage pills is unlikely to become widespread in the near term.
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© 2001 UCLA Center for East Asian Studies