Japanese Parasitologist Who Raised Parasites in His Own Body for 15 Years Passes Away

▲Koichiro Fujita, Emeritus Professor, Tokyo University School of Medicine and Dentistry [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] It was recently revealed that Koichiro Fujita, a Japanese parasitologist at Tokyo Medical and Dental University known for his eccentric claims such as "excessive cleanliness causes disease" and "being moderately dirty is good for health," has passed away.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun on the 28th, Professor Fujita's cause of death was aspiration pneumonia, and he died on the 14th of last month at the age of 81.

Born in Manchuria in 1939, Fujita graduated from Tokyo Medical and Dental University and began researching parasitology after conducting filariasis surveys in the Amami and Okinawa Islands while working in the orthopedic department.

From the perspectives of parasitology, tropical medicine, and infectious immunology, he warned that the Japanese tendency toward excessive cleanliness actually weakens immunity.

He particularly argued that the reason many Japanese suffer from pollen allergies is due to the excessive eradication of parasites, and emphasized the need to coexist with parasites and bacteria. He was also famous for conducting immune research by harboring tapeworms (cestodes) in his own intestines for 15 years.

He left behind works such as “The Smiling Roundworm - The Struggles of a Parasitologist” (1994), “Parasites That Fly in the Sky” (1996), “Cleanliness is a Disease” (1999), and “The Brain is a Fool, the Gut is Smart - Training the Gut Makes You Smarter” (2012).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.