Hello and welcome to Health Check from the BBC.
I'm Claudia Hammond.
In a moment,
Japan has declared a flu epidemic and is seeing higher numbers of cases than usual for the time of year.
We'll ask what this means for global flu predictions.
And can you imagine going online, finding some medical research,
volunteering to take part, and then faking all your answers?
Strange thing to do, right?
Well, later on, we'll hear about the problem of imposters in health research.
And to help me today, I have family.
It's a bit bizarre isn't it that?
I mean it's astonishing and yeah as a doctor it makes me worry a lot about the research I've read and how much of it is down to imposters.
Yeah we'll have more on that later.
What do you have for us today?
Well I'm really excited about this nasal adrenaline spray which is going to change the lives of people with allergies.
Well, before all that,
Japan has declared a flu epidemic with cases surging earlier than would be expected in a typical flu season.
Now, Ayn, you've been taking a look at the figures.
Who's most affected?
It's really interesting.