The health ministry's expert panel on vaccines holds a meeting in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on March 12, 2021. (Mainichi/Kentaro Ikushima)

       TOKYO -- A tweet claiming that various prefectural medical associations across Japan decided not to report deaths due to side effects from coronavirus vaccines has been spreading, but according to the health ministry and medical associations, this tweet is erroneous.

       The tweet, posted under the account of Yutaka Matsuzaki on Aug. 25, had been liked roughly 8,800 times and retweeted over 6,000 times as of Sept. 5. It reads in Japanese, "I heard this from a person linked to the medical field. The Hokkaido Medical Association and other prefectural medical associations decided not to report deaths that occur after people receive vaccinations. This is because if the real number is reported, the public will panic. The suppression of real information is the first step toward ruin. Japan is over."

       According to the profile listed on the Twitter account, Matsuzaki is the vice president of a management consulting firm, and has experience working as a secretary in charge of policy for a Diet member.

       When there are suspicions that people are experiencing side effects after receiving the coronavirus vaccine, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare seeks reports from the doctor or the operator of the medical facility and collects information on the cases, based on the Immunization Act.

       Even in cases in which no causal relationship has been confirmed between a vaccine and a health condition, any suspicious cases must be reported. The reported cases are then gathered by the government's review organization, the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), after which experts and others assess the causal relationship between the vaccine and the health condition. The results are then reported to the health ministry's expert panel on vaccines and side effects, and related documents are uploaded onto the website.

       Medical associations are professional organizations that doctors join voluntarily. The Japan Medical Association, various prefectural medical associations, and municipal medical associations are all independent bodies. The health ministry seeks reports from physicians and operators of medical facilities, and not medical associations; medical associations are not involved in the reporting process.

       A vial of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine is seen in the Miyagi Prefecture capital of Sendai on May 24, 2021. (Mainichi/Daisuke Wada)

       So, are there ever cases in which medical associations decide not to report post-vaccination deaths, and demand such handling of cases from members of their associations? When asked by the Mainichi Shimbun, multiple prefectural medical associations, such as those of Hokkaido, Hiroshima, Ishikawa and Osaka denied that they have made such decisions.

       Regarding the tweet, Shigeki Nishino, executive director of the Hiroshima Prefectural Medical Association said, "It is a baseless rumor, and neither our prefectural medical association nor the medical associations of any other prefecture would ever decide to take such action." A public relations official of a medical association in the Kanto region added, "While there may be occasions in which we provide information to medical facilities, we would never instruct them 'not to report information.'"

       According to documents from the health ministry's expert panel on vaccines, there were 1,002 deaths (all evaluated by experts) reported as of Aug. 8, of which five cases were found to have "no causal relationship to vaccination." Meanwhile, 997 cases were judged as lacking information to draw a conclusion. There were no cases in which experts said "a causal link could not be denied."

       Ninety-one deaths were reported between Aug. 9 and 20, and experts are assessing the nature of those cases. A health ministry official said that even after Matsuzaki tweeted his post, there have been no cases in which reports of deaths following vaccination have not come in.

       The Mainichi asked to interview Matsuzaki through the company for which he works, but the company replied via email, "As we understand that what our vice president has tweeted is his personal view, we would like to refrain from accepting an interview."

       (Japanese original by Yukako Ono, Digital News Center)

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