Did Japan declare a state of emergency over a purported increase in cancer deaths linked to COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: No government websites in Japan or credible news organizations published anything about the purported "emergency" in 2024. The article that made the claim failed to cite any corroborating sources.
The claim originated from an article (archived here) published by The People's Voice on April 21, 2024, under the title:
Japan Declares Emergency Over 'Explosion of mRNA Cancers'
The opening paragraph repeated the headline:
Japan has declared a national emergency over the explosion of cancer cases across the country caused by the mRNA vaccines.
This is what it looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: The People's Voice screenshot taken on Fri Apr 26 14:00:26 2024 UTC)
Neither the title, the opening paragraph nor the rest of The People's Voice article named any sources -- instead the story moved on to a discussion of a study that was described as "official," though the disclosed affiliations of its authors (archived here) did not include government credentials.
Furthermore, one of the authors, Masanori Fukushima, was previously named an "anti-vaccine demagogue" by Japan's former vaccine chief Taro Kono (archived here), as AFP pointed out (archived here) in an April 4, 2024, fact check of another claim about COVID-19 vaccination in Japan.
Fukushima's call to investigate vaccines, implying the existence of related excessive deaths, prompted Kono's response in early 2023.
But after that, Japan's health authorities told AAP FactCheck (archived here) that there were no reported deaths causally related to vaccination and that, therefore, contrary to posts on social media, the government was not investigating the matter.
Lead Stories searched the website of the government of Japan, but found no information about the purported emergency. A search of the website via Google (archived here) returned no relevant results apart from duplicates of The People's Voice claim.
Lead Stories also searched the English version of Japan's Ministry of Health website (archived here), but it did not mention such an emergency, either.
A keywords search of the Google News archive of thousands of reliable information sites (archived here) found no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the claim.
Lead Stories contacted the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C., for additional comments. If we get a response, this story will be updated as appropriate.
The People's Voice
The People's Voice has a lengthy record of publishing false stories in the past. It describes (archived here) itself as a resource "comprised of various web pages operated by Fact Checked Limited," but it has nothing to do with fact-checking.
As of this writing, its website contains a liability disclaimer (archived here), saying:
FACT CHECKED LIMITED AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, TIMELINESS, AND ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS CONTAINED ON THE SITE FOR ANY PURPOSE. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, ALL SUCH INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS ARE PROVIDED 'AS IS' WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND.
Other Lead Stories fact checks discussing COVID-19 and vaccines can be found here.
