ladyarkles
03-25-2005, 07:40 PM
Friday 25th March, 2005
Japan upholds official's AIDS conviction
Big News Network.com Friday 25th March, 2005 (UPI)
A Tokyo court dismissed an appeal Friday by an official convicted of not recalling unheated blood products tainted with the AIDS virus that killed a patient.
Akihito Matsumura, an official in the Health and Welfare Ministry, was convicted and given a suspended prison term for profession negligence resulting in the death of a hemophiliac, Mainichi Shimbun reported.
Matsumura should have notified doctors that unheated blood products might be tainted and prevented them from administering such drugs to patients so that they would not be infected with HIV. He neglected his duty to prevent the infection, the presiding judge of the Tokyo High Court said.
The court also found Matsumura, then director of the ministry's Biologics and Antibiotics Division, knew using unheated blood products to treat patients, especially hemophiliacs, carried an extremely high risk of contracting the AIDS virus.
Yet he approved continued use of the products, forbade trying an alternative and failed to prevent doctors from administering such drugs to a patient in April 1986, the court said. As a result, the patient contracted human immunodeficiency virus and died of AIDS.
Japan upholds official's AIDS conviction
Big News Network.com Friday 25th March, 2005 (UPI)
A Tokyo court dismissed an appeal Friday by an official convicted of not recalling unheated blood products tainted with the AIDS virus that killed a patient.
Akihito Matsumura, an official in the Health and Welfare Ministry, was convicted and given a suspended prison term for profession negligence resulting in the death of a hemophiliac, Mainichi Shimbun reported.
Matsumura should have notified doctors that unheated blood products might be tainted and prevented them from administering such drugs to patients so that they would not be infected with HIV. He neglected his duty to prevent the infection, the presiding judge of the Tokyo High Court said.
The court also found Matsumura, then director of the ministry's Biologics and Antibiotics Division, knew using unheated blood products to treat patients, especially hemophiliacs, carried an extremely high risk of contracting the AIDS virus.
Yet he approved continued use of the products, forbade trying an alternative and failed to prevent doctors from administering such drugs to a patient in April 1986, the court said. As a result, the patient contracted human immunodeficiency virus and died of AIDS.