On March 7, 2019, a joint meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party’s health and labor division and its subcommittee on pharmaceutical affairs reviewed a bill to amend the pharmaceutical law. It agreed to leave the content to the division chair, Koizumi Shinjirō, and others. The headline in a trade newspaper noted that objections had also been raised.
A political science paper describes the party’s principle: approval in each division of its Policy Research Council, then unanimity in its General Council. These decisions, the paper says, have worked as de facto party discipline.