We work to broaden perspectives on kampo by promoting kampo education in Japan's medical schools. At least 64 of Japan's 80 medical schools offered lectures on Eastern medical practices in 2001. Six additional medical schools will begin offering such lectures in 2002. In just four years, fully 35 Japanese medical schools will have begun covering Eastern traditions in their curricula.
	Improvements in medical education are receiving a great deal of emphasis at Japan's Ministry of Education and Science, and kampo is part of that emphasis. The ministry recently issued a mode core curriculum for medical education. Included in that proposed mode was an item that calls for familiarizing medical students with the basic principles of kampo medicine. That reinforces our confidence in the growth prospects for kampo preparations in Japanese medical care.
Medical seminars are the main vehicle in our measures for cultivating interest in kampo preparations among physicians. We held 180 seminars for physicians in the past fiscal year, which drew a total of 2,900 participants. We also convened 1,767 kampo study sessions for small groups of physicians at hospitals and other sites nationwide. Some 5,000 consumers attended eight kampo seminars that we held at different sites in Japan. Those seminars focused on such topics as health care for working women and for upper middle- aged and elderly people. Growing numbers of physicians are expressing an interest in kampo as educational and marketing activities highlight the scientific basis for kampo medicine. Trends are promising in academia, too. Kampo education is part of a model core curriculum that the government has issued for medical education. Japan thus is gaining a stronger and broader foundation for kampo medicine.