When a drug is likely to cause a severe side effect--say, an increased risk of heart attack, an allergic reaction that causes the skin to burn or liver failure--the standard practice is to warn patients and doctors about the product's labeling, and to send out warning letters to physicians who might prescribe the medicine.

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Not that Mr Haraguchi was likely to prescribe harsh medicine for the banks, either.

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But it cannot quite steel itself to concede that, in the face of the evidence that it presents, American doctors ought now to be given the right to prescribe the stuff as freely as they would any other medicine.

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The medicine for these ills is simple to prescribe, but painfully hard to administer: structural reforms to deregulate labour and product markets.

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In the most restrictive cases, only certain registered doctors are allowed to prescribe a medicine, or a drug is only distributed by a limited number of pharmacies.

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