Each year, around 150,000 deaths in Japan are deemed to be "unusual" in that they did not occur in hospitals. If there is any suspicion that death may be linked to crime, the body may undergo judicial autopsy. Even when there is no such suspicion, the body may undergo administrative autopsy if the cause of death needs to be determined.

In major urban areas such as Tokyo and Osaka, which operate so-called medical examiner systems, typically one in five deaths regarded as having occurred in unusual circumstances is subjected to autopsy. But in the rest of the country, where 92 million people live, the rate of autopsy is only 4 percent.

In areas where the medical examiner system has yet to be established, when simple initial police investigations find no signs that suggest crime, cases of unusual deaths run the risk of being categorized as death from illness caused by such factors as "heart failure." Usually, no CT scans or testing for drugs are done. From a medical viewpoint, such bodies should be properly examined to determine cause of death.

In fact, in Kitami, Hokkaido, a man who died of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a defective gas water heater made by Paloma Industries Ltd. was not recognized as the victim of a fatal accident because the police concluded he died of heart failure. This is in spite of the fact that his bereaved family members had pointed to the possibility....more...

Only about 9 percent of bodies of people who died of unnatural causes unknown reasons handled by the nation's police in 2005 underwent autopsies, with the remaining 134,905 bodies only examined by sight and noninvasive means, it was learned Wednesday.

Experts said the rate--gleaned from documents from the National Police Agency, the Heath, Labor and Welfare Ministry and other sources--is the lowest among developed countries, and could mean murder cases and common fatal accidents may have been overlooked.

The Japanese Society of Legal Medicine will discuss the matter at its annual convention in Akita starting Thursday, and plans to urge the government to review the current system of determining causes of deaths.

According to NPA and ministerial statistics, there were 148,475 deaths of unknown causes, excluding traffic accidents, in 2005, accounting for 14 percent of all deaths.

For such deaths, police and other officials examine bodies, and if determined to be crime-related, a judicial autopsy is carried out under the Criminal Procedure Code. An administrative autopsy also can be carried out under orders from governors, as well as an autopsy conducted upon the consent of bereaved family members of those who have died of unknown causes....more...

Over the past 10 years, there were at least 13 cases in which unnatural deaths were found to be murders after the victims' bodies were cremated, following visual examinations by police that determined the deaths were caused by natural causes, according to the findings of a Yomiuri Shimbun survey.

In 19 cases during the same period, medical examiners in Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe--which have advanced medical examination systems--re-examined bodies after initial examinations determined people had died from unnatural deaths that were not crime-related, and brought to light possible overlooked murders after they conducted administrative dissections to examine the causes of death.

The cases have revealed the flaws of checks by sight and the possibility that murdered people have been buried in most parts of the country without mistakes made during the checks being caught....more...