In a Nov. 8 press release, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center announced that Katsuya Takasu, the most famous plastic surgeon in Japan, was no longer a member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery (AACS). Previously, the center had been urging the AACS to expel Takasu because of his public praise for Nazism and statements that "deny the Holocaust and the Nanjing Massacre."
Given Takasu's celebrity in Japan, the AACS announcement should have been news here, but it was only covered by the Japanese outlet of online news site Huffington Post and the Asahi Shimbun, both with brief articles. The only mainstream media outlet that covered the story in any detail was Tokyo Shimbun on Nov. 11.
The newspaper talked to Takasu, who insisted the statements in question, delivered via Twitter in 2015, "only admired the medical techniques" of Nazi Germany. He said he never praised Nazi "ideology."
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