Blood Banking (Asia)

Japanese Minister Apologizes to AIDS Patients Over Tainted Blood

Published in Blood Weekly, March 4th, 1996

Japan's health minister apologized for the first time on February 16, 1996, for the government's failure to prevent transfusions of HIV tainted blood in the early 1980s.

"I am truly sorry," Naoto Kan told HIV carriers and AIDS patients' parents, some of them carrying their dead children's bones.

Patients have long demanded a government apology, saying officials knew as early as 1983 that transfusions of untested blood posed an AIDS risk but didn't approve testing the blood until 1985.

About 2,000 people, mostly hemophiliacs, were infected with HIV, and activists say more than 400 have died.

In a meeting with...

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Source: Blood Weekly (1996-03-04)

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