Yamanashi dentists put I.D. tape on dentures in bid to confirm suicides

KOFU, Yamanashi Pref. (Kyodo) The Yamanashi Dental Association has for six years been pushing a program in which identification tape is attached to false teeth to make it easier to confirm who committed suicide in a local forest.

The association began the project in February 2000 to identify bodies found in the dense Aokigahara forest at the foot of Mount Fuji, where many people commit suicide. The group felt that identification could be made more quickly if people had their names and prefecture codes attached to any false teeth they had.

Between 2000 and last March, Yamanashi dentists have put 1.5 × 4 mm transparent tapes on the false teeth of 5,380 people, each containing the person's name and prefecture number.

The project has been supported by about 50 dental facilities in Yamanashi Prefecture. The cost of the procedure is covered by the association.

"Some university hospitals are employing the same method. Detailed studies (about their safety and durability) are required, but no major problems have been reported so far," Kanayama said.

Unlike most other countries that have been using dental records for identification for several decades, Japan only began using them after the 1985 Japan Airlines plane crash on Mount Osutaka in Gunma Prefecture that claimed 520 lives. Some of the victims were burned or otherwise damaged beyond recognition.

"In the wake of that accident, the importance of using teeth to identify people involved in big disasters has been recognized by dentists' associations across the country, and dental practitioners have become involved in this type of identification," said dentist Noboru Kanayama, who has spearheaded the program.

Dentists in Japan now keep files of patient X-rays that can be used for identification.

"In many cases, teeth are used as the final proof" of identify, Kanayama said.

Since the program started, there have been two cases in which a body has been identified by the tape.

A man in his 60s who was found dead in Japan's Southern Alps in July 2003 could not be identified by his belongings and neither his fingerprints nor a search on the police missing person database turned up any information.

It was the tape attached to his teeth that identified him.

In the other case, a man in his 70s whose body was found in the city of Fuefuki in November 2001 was identified within three hours.

"If medical institution codes and other information are added, the tapes will become more useful," Kanayama said. "The popularization of the dental tapes will depend on who will bear the costs and what policy there should be on implanting them."