Global Health part 2

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In the morning of February 16th, our NPO Health Policy Institute (HPI) held the annual “Medical Policy Summit” with our directors, advisors and members. The half-day meeting includes four panels focused on various issues on Japan’s health system.

Based on our 3-year activity at HPI, it may be time to expand our scope to go global, thus this year, we held an international conference in the afternoon, “Global Health Summit: Advancing our promises for TICAD/G8 and Beyond”. The MC was NHK’s Ms. Doden.

Former Prime Minister, Mr. Jun-ichiro Koizumi addressed the key note speech about “Food and Environment”. As may be expected, his speech was vibrant and fully attracted the audience. He talked for exactly 30 minutes without a manuscript or memo. His speech covered from beriberi, change of eating habits, longevity in Japan, the Japanese word “HENJIN” meaning “extraordinary” and not “eccentric, crazy”, his knowledge about Anjin Miura (William Adams) and scurvy, his visit to Miyako Island 2 days ago to see the process of sugar cane being produced into bioethanol and the resistance of the oil industry etc. Half of the participants came from overseas, but it was a wonderful opening.

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Photo1 Former Prime Minister Jun-ichiro Koizumi

 

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Photo2 The World Bank Vice President Dr. Joy Phumaphi

Ms. Sadako Ogata was traveling to Africa, so she addressed her greetings via video.  Then followed a speech from one of the Vice Presidents at The World Bank, Dr. Joy Phumaphi. Panel participants were Mr. Jay Naidoo, Chairman of the Board of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Development Bank of South Africa (whom I met in Davos during this year’s session with Bono), Dr. Tachi Yamada from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation whom I have referred to many times in my blog, Mr.Hiromasa Yonekura, President of Sumitomo Chemical which is globally well known for their outstanding effect of Olyset Net against malaria, Mr. Tadashi Yamamoto, President of Japan Center for International Exchange, known as the pioneer who started a real NPO in Japan and Ms. Akiko Maeda of The World Bank headquarters in Washington DC. With such distinguished members, we had a lot of fruitful discussion. For many of the Japanese audience, Japan’s contribution to Africa may have sounded something new. Mr. Koji Tsuruoka, Director-General of Ministry of Foreign Affairs made a speech on Japanese government’s view for TICAD, G8 Summit etc. To wrap up the conference, Mr. Yukio Hatoyama, Secretary General of The Democratic Party whose local is Toyako, where the next Summit will be held, addressed a message via video.

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Photo3 Dr. Naidoo, Dr. Yamada, Mr.Yonekura from right during panel

 

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Photo4 Ms. Doden, Ms.Maeda, Mr.Yamamoto from left during panel

 

They are all the global leaders of initiating Global Health. Dr. Naidoo’s 13 year-old daughter, who is a big fan of Japan, accompanied him to Japan for the first time.
The reception was also very successful and I felt the high expectation towards Japan, being the hosting country for the upcoming TICAD and G8 Summit.

The following day, on Sunday February 17th, there was a discussion session with people working for Global Health related NGO in Japan which was hosted by G8 NGO Forum. This also turned out to be very fruitful.

As I repeatedly say, Japan is hosting big events this year; TICAD in May and G8 Summit in July which will attract great deal of attention worldwide.  Most probably, it will be the last chance for Japan to host a G8 Summit. In that respect, this conference was held very timely and the output was successful.

For an independent think tank like HPI to hold a conference with the support of The World Bank, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation etc. is a very open policy discussing process that is not necessarily led by the officials. I felt that it was a conference that showed a glimpse of Japan’s direction in the global era.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude for the people who attended this conference. Also, many thanks to the staff that help organize this event!

(photography by Tetsu Kudo)

Global Health part 1

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In this global world, as super-rich emerge, the poor become even poorer. Currently, out of the 6.6 billion world population, about 20% are the so-called “extreme poverty” class and face high death rates for mothers giving birth, infants and children under age of 5.

Every year, millions of people die from hunger, malnutrition and diseases related to that.  Especially poverty in Africa and South Asia is miserable.  As our awareness towards global warming changes, production of bio fuel has increased, leading to the raise of corn and wheat prices.  The world is moving to a critical direction.  “2C”＝”Climate Change” and “3Ｆ”＝”Fuel, Food, and Feed” has a big impact to the people suffering from poverty. This is effecting heavily to the changes in global human society.

On February 15th, we held a conference on “Global Health: Under-nutrition” with the support of The World Bank, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other organizations. Dr. Tachi Yamada, President of Global Health Initiative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, made the closing remark and I did the welcome remark.  During lunch, there was a wonderful speech from the Ghanaian Minister of Health and Welfare.

In addition, the world’s leading medical journal “The Lancet” started to feature on world nutrition since this January. The article is based on data from vast evidence and finds issues, some what like building up data for what can be done. The real challenge is what we can really do to make a change.

Japan is doing grass-roots ODA activities such as distributing iodine salt to Mongolia, something that is unique to Japan.

School meals are good, but babies up to 1-2 years’ nutrition and supplying necessary elements (like iodine, iron etc.) is what is important. Especially breast-feeding should be the key nutrition for babies up to 6 months and if nutrition is not enough up to 1-2 years old, it will influence their lives later on like poor grades in school, and allowing themselves to be in a social level of facing unemployment and low wages.  As this leads to unfortunate future for the children and gives great impact on the nation’s productivity, nutrition is indeed a big issue.

Today’s conference was very enlightening for me and I thought is was good.
Tomorrow will be the second day of the conference.

Medicins San Frontieres

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Medecins San Frontieres or the Doctors Without Borders was established in 1971 by a group of French medical doctors and journalists in the wake of famine in Biafra, Nigeria.  On February 1st, Co-founder of MSF, Dr. Xavier Emmanuelli visited my office with Dr. Tartiere and the French Embassy staff (photo).

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Photo: With Dr. Tartiere, me, Dr. Ememmuelli, Mr. Miaux and his Embassy staff, from left..

I showed him a few pictures of my daughter, an US educated medical doctor, who works in Los Angeles, when she was under MSF mission in Liberia for 6 months from April, 2006.  It was time after Liberia elected Ms. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (whom I met in Davos last year) in November 2005, as its new President, well educated in US, and the nation was gradually moving toward stabilization and refugees were coming back from adjacent countries, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.  My daughter told us that she met a good number of Japanese young helping Liberians and indeed, there are many young Japanese committed to such humanitarian causes and I am very proud of them.

He told me that they visited Sanya, a slum in Tokyo, and this was a center of concern of MSF originated from SAMU or Service d’Aide Medicale d’Urgence, "Emergency Medical Assistance Service".

We had a wonderful one hour discussing various humanitarian issues.

WHO commission, WHO Kobe Center and Global health

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I am attending the WHO Commission for Social Determinents of Health（CSDH） held at WHO Kobe Center from the 16th. Kobe Center serves as one of the hub of CSDH and 16 Commissioners are participating this time. As I have reported in my blog about the CSDH that started in March, 2005 （Beijing、Vanacouver、Geneva、Nairobi etc.） this is the 10th and will be the last conference and the final report is due in June.

Thanks to Dr.Iwao, former Chief of Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare who headed the WHO Kobe Center until December 2007, just until 2 weeks ago, for this meeting in Kobe. I’m happy that this was Dr. Kumaresan’s first big task after he newly took office in January. Former Director Dr. Iwao, new Director Dr. Kumaresan, the Governor of Hyogo Prefecture and the Mayor of Kobe attended the reception held at the night of 16th. And today, January 17th marks the 13th year of the Kobe earthquake. WHO Kobe Center was established the following year after suffering from the damage.

This is the last conference of CSDH and will be the only one held in Japan. This year, Japan will host conferences that will attract the world’s attention like the TICAD and G8 summit. Also, it is the mid year of the United Nation’s MDG（Millennium Development Goals）. “Global Health” is one of the major global agenda. Last November, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Koumura addressed its importance in his speech and the content was published in Lancet.

This year, Japan will attract a lot of attention from the world which will also mean that it is a year of heavy responsibility as well. Nevertheless, stock prices are dropping in the year-end through the new year and sentiments are inward-focused in a stagnant mood as usual, don’t you think?  To cope with this environment, Prime Minister Fukuda will attend the World Economic Forum in Davos in the end of this month and make a speech. There will be a policy speech tomorrow (18th),  and the Davos Meeting speech will follow,  so the staff at the Prime Minister’s office will be very busy. 

With the understanding said above, we asked the Commissioners of CSDH to come to Tokyo in the morning of the 15th to pay a courtesy call to Prime Minister Fukuda and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr.Koumura. In the afternoon, we held a global conference on “Global Health as Global Agenda” with the presence of Mr. Masuzoe, Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare. 

It was our attempt to urge the domestically focused Japanese to look at more global issues. It turned out to be very successful with about 200 enthusiastic participants. Keynote speeches and the panels were all wonderful. The Commissioners were also very happy about it. As being a member of the Commissioner myself, I was also very satisfied. Thanks to you all who have participated, the success is to your credit.

From New York City

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Here I am in New York City.  I came to visit The New York Academy of Sciences which is the first Academy of Sciences established in the United States.  I have been working with this organization for several years now and decided to visit their new office which was moved to a new site last year.  The office of the President and CEO, Mr. Ellis Rubinstein (photo 1), is located at the 40th floor of a building that stands next to Ground Zero of September 11.  I did an interview with him for 45 minutes from 8:30 am.  From 10:00am, attended a board meeting of a new project called “Scientists Without Borders” (photo 2).  Sounds familiar?  Yes, the naming comes from “Doctors Without Borders.”  Its mission is about the same.  Twelve (12) people are working as its Advisory members including myself.

Img1_1024Photo1　President Rubinstein and myself at his office
(Today, his wife, Dr Joanna Rubinstein is in Ethiopia with Dr Jeffery Sachs.  She works as Executive Director of a program run by Dr Sachs )

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Photo2　Together with Advisory members and NYAS staffs

Dr. Wakhungu from Kenya is also an Advisory member.  Kenya has just gone through a presidential election and now is in great confusion because of the doubt of injustice.  Especially I was concerned about Kibera slum which was reported to be in terrible chaos, and Dr. Wakhungu told me that the situation is really bad.  Olympic Primary School which I mentioned in my blog of June 2006 and October 2007 was burned.  I hope the school will be rebuilt somehow quickly.

Also, Prof. Victor Zhau at Duke University, whom I met yesterday at Washington DC and introduced in my blog is in the Advisory board. We are working together again.  Dr. Seth Berkley of Int’l AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), whom I introduced in my blog in October 2007 is also with us and he gave us many suggestions based on his own experience.  We did brainstorming for full 3 hours covering issues such as registration, potentials, management, funding, etc.  There are many problems addressed and to be solved, but it certainly was a good learning opportunity.  A MD-PhD candidate at Columbia University School of Medicine (moved from India with his/her parents) is joining our session, too.  Developing a new project like this inviting such young people is nice.  I certainly hope that this project will get started no matter how much time it may take.

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Photo3　In front of the bust of Charles Darwin at the reception of NYAS with Ms Miura, vice consul of Consulate general in New York

In the afternoon, I went to the Council of Foreign Relations known by its outstanding journal “Foreign Affairs.”  To my amazement, the day before, Dr. Tachi Yamada of Gates foundation, whom I wrote about in my blog was here to give lecture on “Global Health.”  It is an interesting coincidence that I gave a lecture at The World Bank in Washington DC under the same theme.  I quickly sent an e-mail to him about this.  The purpose of my visit is to see Dr. Laurie Garrett, a Senior Fellow for Global Health, who wrote a great paper on “Foreign Affairs” Jan-Feb 2007, which pointed out that “the waste is seen so much in projects on AIDS.”  I was impressed by this paper, and asked her to be a jury member to select the winner of Noguchi Hideyo Africa Prize, a prize established by the suggestion of former Prime Minister Mr. Koizumi, it’s first awarding ceremony scheduled during TICAD that will be held in Yokohama in May.  I came to thank her for accepting our invitation and discussed our common interests, global health.

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Photo4　With Dr. Laurie Garrett

Today, it is warm here New York City this winter.  The city has unique and unexplainable charm.

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Photo5　On the street of NYC

Then I went to the Rockefeller foundation to see Managing Director, Dr. Ariel Pablos-Mendez (Photo 6) to talk about the report on a meeting which he organized “Pocantico II: The Global Challenge of Health Systems.”  Unfortunately, I received a message from the President Dr. Judith Rodin, saying that her schedule did not match mine this time.  Maybe we will be able to see each other at the World Economic Forum at Davos, two weeks from now.

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Photo6　Together with Dr. Ariel Pablos-Mendez

Dr. Rodin is the first woman to become the president of an Ivy League University in 1994.  She became the president of the University of Pennsylvania, where I started my career in the US.  But, now, four (Princeton, Pennsylvania, Brown, Harvard) among eight Ivy League Universities have female presidents.  How about Japan?  I mention this so many times, but….

Dr. Rodin was the Provost at Yale University before becoming the President of the U. Penn., and as I pointed out several times, Dr. Allison Richard, top (it is called Vice Chancellor because Chancellor is HRH Duke of Edinburgh) of Cambridge University and Dr. Suzan Hockfield, President of MIT, both were recruited to head these top universities when they were the Provost at Yale.  Is this a sheer coincidence?   Or does this mean that Yale has an exceptional ability to choose right people?

This day was also a day of preliminary of the Presidential Election in New Hampshire, and Ms. Clinton won to make up the defeat in Iowa, making it a tie to Obama.  Do you think US will have a first female president?

The main objective of this two day trip of visits and lectures was to prepare for the Global Health related meeting (under the auspices of WHO, World Bank, Gates Foundation, NPO, Government of Japan) and connecting it to preparation of and publicity for TICAD, G8 Summit.

In the evening, I had dinner in a restaurant in Soho with Dr. Rubinstein and Dr. Berkeley, whom I saw in the morning, and Mr. Nakasone, a student at the School of International and Public Affairs, Graduate School of Columbia University whom I met in Tokyo this summer.  Mr Nakasone is a fascinating young man.  I am looking forward to his future as a world level career holder. Maybe you have guessed by his name ? yes, he is a grandson of former prime minister Mr. Nakasone, and son of Mr. Hirofumi Nakasone, a member of the House of Councilors.

I left JFK Airport in the morning of January 9, to return to Japan.

From California-1, UCLA after a long time

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Dec. 4th, I flew to California.  First of all, I had lunch at Napa Valley Grille at Westwood, with my ULCA mentor, Dr. Kleeman(Photo1) and his wife.  Then, I went to the newly established California Nanosystems Institute（CNSI）(Photo2).  This is yet to be fully opened but some work has already started.  There are joint research programs with the University of Tokyo and National Institute for Materials Science(NIMS) at Tsukuba, and I am happy to hear it.  I met there Prof. Matsui of Kyushu University Silicon Valley Office was also visiting.  Since the research conducted over here is a joint work related to medicine, engineering, and chemistry, the research laboratory is constructed right in the center surrounded by these departments, and various ideas are applied to the system of how the researchers will participate.  This NanoTech Center aims to collaborate with Bio and also works in collaboration with Univ. of California Santa Barbara (The place where Mr. Nakamura Shuji who discovered Blue Diode was head-hunted) which focus mainly in the Nano material area.  I met several researchers and also met 2 Japanese scientists.  They are doing very interesting research projects.  They are involved in their research from past 10 and 20 years, respectively.  They are working hard.  I wish both all the best.

On the next day, I met Dr. Gerald Levey, Vice-Chancellor of Health Affair and Dean of School of Medicine. We knew each other for some 12 to 13 years.  We greeted each other and talked for an hour.  Then I had a meeting with the professor of pediatrics, Dr. McCabe(Photo4), who is a friend of Dr. Eto of Jikei University, both work in the same field, thus genetics of pediatrics deseases.  Dr. McCabe raises horses at the Doublestrand Ranch from the time he was at the Colorado University.  He is not only brilliant but the scale of activities is big.  I am envious.

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Photo1　With my Mentor at UCLA, Dr. Kleeman.

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Photo2　In the UCLA California Nanosystems Institute(CNSI).

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Photo3　With Dr. Gerald Levey

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Photo4　With Dr. McCabe, Dr. David Lundberg(In-charge of UCLA-CNSI international cooperation administration).

I still miss my university where I studied for quite a long period.  The penetrating blue sky of California which seems to beckon me to come back.  The unending bright campus, the University town, Westwood, I miss every part of it.  This is my 24 hours visit to UCLA, that I feel I wished I could come back.

I headed towards the airport and went to San Francisco.  By the way, the flight was late by around 2 hours and I reached in San Francisco at 5: 30 pm.

 

Japan-Arab conference at the Alexandria library

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I arrived the Kansai airport from Haneda on the evening of Nov. 19th.  Then I flew to Dubai and now arrived at Alexandria, Egypt.  This was my 3rd visit to the Dubai airport in last 4 weeks.  I arrived at Alexandria on the 20th at 11:30 and headed directly to the Alexandria Library.  This about 2300 year’s old library is the world’s first scientific academy, and the magnificient buliding was reconstructed 5 years ago.  The contents have also been reinforced under the leadership of Dr. Serageldin, the library chief.  He is also my friend and has developed several excellent programs.  I am also a member of the Board of Trustees of the library for past 3 years and I visit this place for the meeting conducted in spring.

I arrived to the Library just in time.  I had an interview from 1:00 pm with Mr. Helal, the Education Minister of Science and Technology.  I have met him several times in past few years.  He is a scholar and a splendid person.  There is a considerable support from Japan.  It is delightful to hear that an opera house is being constructed recently in addition to the plans of establishing a science and technology institute with the support of Japan.  I mainly discussed about the academic exchange with Minister Helal.

Egypt01Photo1  On the library terrace

There were about 120 people from Japan and 150 people from Arab countries participated in the Japan-Arab conference.  The conference had various sessions and sub-sessions and a full discussions were conducted about a wide range of topics, such as politics, economics, science, technology, environment, health care, culture, and art, etc..  From Japan, the group was headed by honorable former MInister Mr. Taro Nakayama besides honorable former Ministers, Mr. Koji Omi, Ms. Yuriko Koike.  From the business sector Mr. Jiro Nemoto of honorary chairman of Nippon Yusen, Mr. Sadao Umeda of chairman of Kajima Corporation.  Dr. Masahisa Yamauchi, a professor of Middle East politics, Mr. Daisuke Nishimura, a foreign ministry environment personnel, and Mr. Youji Yamada, a film director who directed "The Twilight Samurai" was also present since this film was to be shown there.  I chaired the environment and water panel and went to several panels.  I was happy that several people I know had come as representatives from the Arab world.

Also I have a good time with former Ambassador Mr. Arima Tatsuo, the busy Japanese government representative on the MIddle East Affairs.  We had planed to meet up before but our timelines never matched until this time.  Needless to say that Mr. Ishikawa, an ambassador to Egypt, and from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Katakura and Mr. Sudou, the former ambassadors to the embassy of Egypt, participated.  This kind of gathering of three ambassodor was extremely rare as I was told.  Also, an ambassador to Morocco, Ms. Haruko Hirose(Also introduced in the blog of Ms. Mayumi Moriyama, a member and worked as No.2 in UNIDO) had come over there.  Since she is working with the United Nations for a long time, even a minor opinion she say shows a fine taste on international relations.

Egypt02Photo2  In the Hernan Palestine Hotel.  From right, Mr. Kaoru Ishikawa, Mr.Takaya Sudo(Chairman of Research Institute of International Affairs Disarmament Center, Former Ambassador to Egypt), Dr. Masayuki Yamauchi(a professor at The University of Tokyo), Ms. Aiko Douden(NHK Commentator), myself, Mr. Numata Sadaaki(Chairman of Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, Former Ambassador to Canada), Mr. Shinsaku Sugiyama(Councilor of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Middle East Africa Bureau)

Historically, there has been little religious conflicts between the Middle East and Japan.  Since good relations are built from the past, it is a region in which mutual exchanges need to be continued.and strengthened  The basic understanding with both parties is that current exchange with Japan is solely in relation to petroleum, and Arabs are not very aware of Japan and vice versa.  It was agreed that there should be more and more exchanges in various fields.  In addition to this, it was also agreed that the contribution of Japan towards environment, clean energy and water problems was immeasurable.

A congress member, Ms. Yuriko Koike, appeared live-broadcasting on the Cairo T.V. on the night of 21st about an hour.  There was one to one interview in Arabic and the theme was about “global warming” and “CoolBiz” in fluent Arabic language which actually was quite something.  A tree plantation is going on in the deserts from past 10 years and currently there seem to be 14,000 trees now.  This year, the Cairo University is celebrating its 100th anniversary.  Ms. Koike, a graduate of Cairo University, is quite admirable that she has many friends and influential people over here.

On the afternoon of 22nd, I left Cairo.  Since I had a time at Dubai about 5 hours for transit, I had dinner with Ms. Lama Farsakh(Photo3).  She is from Palestine and her husband is from Egypt.  They have two daughters.  We mostly talked about the Israel-Palestine issues.

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Photo3  With Ms. Lama Farsakh

Discussion about the sister cities /countries of Sendai city and Finland, aged society and then a much awaited active role of women in Japan

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In the week of Nov 12, I had an opportunity to give speeches everyday in the week.  On 13th (Tuesday), I was at the Future Innovation Forum.  On 14th (Wednesday), I was at the Sir Martin Wood Certfication cermony in the British embassy and I gave a speech about the lifestyle related diseases on the 15th (Thursday).

The Sendai city is in collaboration with Finland.  On the 16th (Friday), a symposium was conducted by both the hosts with a theme "The Aged Society."  There seem to be several issues regarding it.  The Finnish Ambassador to Japan, the Sendai city mayor Mr. Katsuhiko Umehara (he was at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry before becoming a mayor) also addressed the symposium.  One of the deputy mayors (2 out of 3 are females), Emiko Iwasaki (She is a doctor who is seems to have been to Africa. The mayor had recruited her which is amazing), myself and a person from Finland gave a keynote speech.  In Japan we have major problems of declining birthrate and also delayed social progress of women.  But nothing has been done about it.  The women activity in Japan is in stark contrast to Finland.

In the afternoon, I headed to Tokyo for the speech "Scienctific technology and the nation" on the 50th anniversary of Asahi newspaper science department. I participated in the panel after the key speech "Out of the frying pan into the fire" given by Mr. Takashi Tachibana.

I was back to Sendai the next day.  There was an invitation from Dr. Noriko Osumi at the Tohoku University meeting "The 6th Gender equality symposium" and a male delivered a keynote speech for the first time.  The panel consisted of eminent people.  According to Mr. Tateo Arimoto ( JST, Japan science and technology agency), the Education Ministry seems to have complained when the first President of Tohoku Universty, Dr. Sawayanagi Masatarou enrolled females for the first time in the University, which was unheard before.

Tohoku University has a support program for female researchers called the Science Angels.  There was again a presentation and award ceremony of "5th Sawayanagi Award (Tohoku University Gender Equality Promotion Award)" and the 3rd award winner gave a presentation.  All of you have done a wonderful work.  I am very happy.  Congratulations.  I have presented the image of the Tohoku University at that time.  Please have a look at it.

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Photo1: Award winners of the Sawayanagi award

Both the Human Development Index and the Gender Development Index are as high as entering the Top 10 (UNDP etc.) of the world.  The Gender Empowerment Index of Japan is ranked 43rd in the 75 countries of UNDP.  It stands at the 91st of 128 countries in the recent World Economic Forum.  It is a pity not to nurture the talents of women.

Things that should be abundoned.

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So busy again this week.  I thought to myself why is it so?

I returned to Japan from the Middle East on the 6th (Tuesday).  So it is a matter of course that I was busy as it was necessary to have the normal contacts, briefings and appointments with various people from the next day.

On the 7th (Wednesday) afternoon, I had a video interview with Dr. Takeshi Yourou (will describe later).  In the evening, a speech which I agreed to do because it was related to the inauguration of "Innovation Courier."  It was great to be with Dr. Yonekura of the Hitotsubashi University.

On the 8th (Thursday) morning, I met Dr. Hisao Endo at a scheduled breakfast meeting of the NPO Health Policy Institute which I preside.  In the afternoon I met several people and discussed about work.  In the evening there was a reception of the President Council of the University of Tokyo where chancellors of more than 10 universities of China and Korea attended.  The vice minister of Ministry of Education of China was also there.  It was a great success. The chancellor of the Uiversity of Tokyo, Dr. Komiyama is a very active person who speaks and acts toward public very positively.

The next day on the 9th (Friday), I had a meeting of the President Council of the University of Tokyo.  I met Dr. Yoshino of the Harvard Business School after a long time.  I think the trend of the debate moved towards the direction I wished, but the speed is somewhat・・・.  Although I understand, it is still irritating.  In the evening was UCLA Alumni association meeting.  The Alumni members have increased under the leadership of Dr. Akada and it has become livelier.  The young people are gradually participating and preparing together.

It was raining since morning on the 10th (Saturday).  I attended the 130th anniversary of the University of Tokyo at the Yasuda auditorium. A President Council was held for this and several people from overseas participated as members. There was also a panel by Nobel Prize winners, Drs. Esaki, Ooe and Koshiba.

On 11th (Sunday), I gave a keynote speech along with Mr. Kamoshita, the minister of environment in a seminar of environment problems at the Sophia University (photo: with the minister Mr. Kamoshita and his wife).  There was a lovely harp, cello and violin performance before and after the speech which gave a great feeling.  I ended my speech with a note of Mr. Gandhi, 'the earth can meet our need, but not our greed' which received a huge applause.

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This has become a habit but I was again busy this week.  I know I must make up my mind to skip or abandon something.

 

Beijing WHO, Discussion on medical policy with Dr. Uzawa at Tokyo and blog

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I arrived at Beijing from Abu Dhabi via Dubai on 24th October to participate in the conference of WHO Commission. This year’s conference was held at Geneva in January and at Vancouver in June.  We are working hard towards the release of the final report which is scheduled next year. Things being at this phase, the programs were mainly closed sessions by the Commissioners.

On 24th, Vice Minister of Health that commensurate with Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan (Photo1) hosted dinner.  The Vice Minister is a surgeon with specialization in liver transplantation etc.  I hear that even today, he sometimes does surgeries in the hospitals. Dr. Chen Zhu, my old friend, whom I have known through IAP etc. for more than 5 years, is the Minister of Health. Unfortunately, we could not meet this time.

Beijin012Photo1: Commissioner Yan Guo, Commission Chairman Sir Marmot, Vice Minister of Health and myself

26th was the final day of the conference.  Late in the afternoon, many flights from Beijing airport were cancelled due to fog.  Fortunately, my flight departed with just 1 hour delay and I reached Narita at 10:50 p.m.  However, there was neither a bus, nor a train or a taxi at that time of a day.  I couldn’t believe it!  Is this an international airport in the capital of a country of "Giant Economy"?

Next day 27th was a rainy Saturday as typhoon was approaching. I have attended the anniversary symposium of "Life and Medical Sciences" at Doshisha University organized by Dr. Hirofumi Uzawa, whom I very much respect (I have mentioned his name many times in this site, so please search it).  Dr. Uzawa wrote a prospectous of the symposium （PDF）which conveyed his great enthusiasm.  In it, he mentioned about my "University Hospital Revolution."  I was happy, honored and shy at the same time.  Not knowing so, I have arranged to give the book to all the participants so it turned out to be a good timing.

Uzawa013Photo2: With the always energetic Dr. Uzawa.

I really enjoyed talking with him.

Afterwards, the speech of both Dr. Uzawa and myself (the beggining of my speech was also used in the Lecture at Helsinki this August) was introduced in a blog (only in Japanese) very positively.  I was glad and sent comments of gratitude to the writer.