Twelve pediatric hospitals, 40 percent of those designated by Japan’s Ministry of Health. Labor and Welfare to provide organs from donors under age 15, are unable to decide when brain death occurs or to handle bodies to preserve organs properly. See news report here The revised Organ Transplant Law went into effect on July 17, 2010.

It is simply another example of bureaucratic assumptions in Japan’s getting ahead of reality, without proper investigation of facts, and thereby jeopardising the success and public acceptance of a much needed program.