Drug Evaluation Committee Don't take medical and health information for granted! Educational material (collaboration of three organizations)
Pharmacovigilance Subcommittee
April 2026
The Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, the Japan Council on the Proper Use of Drugs, and the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association have collaborated to produce the educational material "Don't Take Medical and Health Information for Granted! which provides tips on how to identify medical and health information.
The general public is highly interested in medical and health care and obtains information from various sources, including the Internet, but some of this information has no scientific basis. We hope that this material will help the general public learn how to discern medical and health information in order to protect their own and their families' health.
Outline of the material - "Mi-ki, ki-ki" is the key to discerning information
In the midst of the abundance of medical and health-related information, it is very dangerous to take the information for granted. This page introduces what information should not be taken for granted and what kind of things you should be careful about. We hope that the general public will remember the three key points to consider when discerning information: "Mi-ki-ki," "Ki-ki-ki," and "Ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki.
Use at public lectures and other events! PPT materials with scripts and flyers
The materials are in the form of PowerPoint files for direct viewing by the general public and for use in public health lectures by pharmacists and those involved in consumer education. It also includes exercises in which the audience can participate. The notes section of the PowerPoint file includes a summary of each slide and a model script for easy use.
We have also prepared a single A4-size flyer that participants can take home with them. We hope that it will be widely used.
A "joint statement" by six related organizations takes one form
In March 2018, six related organizations* released a "Joint Statement***" declaring their commitment to tackling medical and health information without scientific basis. In response to this statement, the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, and the Japan Council on the Proper Use of Drugs established the Council for the Promotion of Basic Knowledge of Drugs to produce this material. The production of this material was made possible with the cooperation of Kyoko Kitazawa, a medical journalist.
Six related organizations: Japan Medical Association, Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, and NPO Japan Medical Journalists Association,
Japan Medical Journalists Association, COML (Center for Medical Human Rights), Japan Council for the Proper Use of Drugs, Inc.
*Full text of the joint statement: https://www.rad-ar.or.jp/about/activity/statement The following is the full text of the joint statement: **The Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, Inc.
You can also refer to the following URL for the educational material "Don't take medical and health information for granted!