Eisuke Nakazawa

The Diamond Princess cruise ship has been anchored at the Yokohama port in Japan since February 3, 2020. A total of 691 cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection had been confirmed as of February 23. The government initially assumed that the infection was not spreading aboard and therefore indicated that any persons who either tested negative for the virus or were asymptomatic should immediately disembark. However, on February 5, the government set a 14-day health observation pe

In recent years, research in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) has made rapid progress. It is expected that robots and AI will play a part in the field of nursing and their role might broaden in the future. However, there are areas of nursing practice that cannot or should not be entrusted to robots and AI, because nursing is a highly humane practice, and therefore, there would, perhaps, be some practices that should not be replicated by robots or AI. Therefore, this paper focuses on sev

Societies of the East are often contrasted with those of the West in their stances toward technology. This paper explores these perceived differences in the context of international ethics guidance for artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. Japan serves as an example of the East, while Europe and North America serve as examples of the West. The paper’s principal aim is to demonstrate that Western values predominate in international ethics guidance and that Japanese values serve as a much-nee

Decoded neurofeedback is a new technology that allows the improvement or modification of human cognitive and moral capacities and has a wide range of potential applications. As decoded neurofeedback will have an impact on society, ethical concerns about this technology should be examined. As decoded neurofeedback modifies the default mode network due to a voxel-based pattern analysis, it enables a tailor-made intervention. However, it is difficult to assess the safety and efficacy of decoded neu

Manuscript writing support services using AI technology have become increasingly available in recent years. In keeping with this trend, we need to sort out issues related to authorship in academic writing. Authorship is attached to the contribution of researchers who report innovative research, the originality of which forms the core of their identity. The most important originality is demonstrated in the discussion of study findings. In the discussion section of this paper, we argue that if a r

If thoughtfully deployed under proper policy constraints, wearable devices offer a way to connect solitary older people to health services and could reduce cases of solitary death while respecting the personhood of the user.

In this article, we perform a thought experiment about living donor kidney transplantation. If a living kidney donor becomes in need of renal replacement treatment due to dysfunction of the remaining kidney after donation, can the donor ask the recipient to give back the kidney that had been donated? We call this problem organ restitution and discussed it from the ethical viewpoint. Living organ transplantation is a kind of 'designated donation' and subsequently has a contract-like character. Fi

This article refers to:Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatment: Ethically Equivalent?Withdrawal Aversion and the Equivalence Test

Ethical discourse on prognosis disclosure is not yet well established. The core of the problem continues to be the dilemma between the right of self-determination and non-maleficence of patients. The prognosis disclosure policy based on Kantian autonomy provides a good solution for the problem. The policy includes demand for strict truth telling and its compatibility with patients' best interest. However, there remains a discrepancy between theory and practice, especially when prognosis is discl

We conclude that organ reuse is not only ethically permissible, but even ethically desirable. Furthermore, we suggest changes to be implemented in the informed consent process prior to organ transplantation. The organ transplant community worldwide should engage in wider and deeper discussions, in hopes that such efforts will lead to the timely preparation of guidelines to implement reuse cardiac organ transplantation as well as reuse transplantation of other organs such as kidney and liver.

Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, such as codeine, are available as an OTC drug at common drugstores and major e-commerce platforms, despite their known propensity for causing psychological dependence and harm from overuse. Misuse of and dependence on over-the-counter drugs are serious public health issues. Possible measures include stricter regulation and control, as well as regulation of access to information and awareness activities, but their effectiveness is limited. Up-scheduling, in which OTC

On December 22, 2017, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) issued a Notice of a policy in support of travels for transplantation under strict conditions 1 (Table 1). It decided to pay approximately ¥10 000 000 (USD 100 000) from national health insurance for each patient (insured) who undergoes transplant surgery overseas 2. Patients can use the money to pay for medical fees and travel expenses, etc., but not to buy organs, which is prohibited by The Japanese Organ Transplan