Progress being made on helping HCV victims

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Progress being made on helping HCV victims

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Less than one week has passed since Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announced the ruling parties would devise a bill to provide compensation to hepatitis C virus sufferers regardless of when they were administered tainted blood products. The outline of the bill has taken shape in the following days, and plaintiffs have agreed to its content.

The bill likely will be submitted to the House of Representatives as a lawmaker-initiated bill as early as Jan. 7. The bill should be enacted into law before the end of the current extraordinary Diet session and relief should be given to the hepatitis C sufferers soon after.

The outline of the envisioned bill compiled by a task force of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito states that compensation will be paid to all hepatitis C sufferers able to prove they received tainted blood products such as fibrinogen.

The plaintiffs refused a settlement proposed in early December by the Osaka High Court, which limited the range of compensation depending on when the blood products were administered. The plaintiffs went up in arms, claiming this settlement plan would split the plaintiffs into two categories for relief measures.

The outline of the envisioned bill went to pains to ensure that this claim could not be leveled at the latest plan.

The preamble of the bill will state that the government--from the standpoint as a legislative body--should admit its responsibility for failing to prevent the damage from spreading, and offer a sincere apology to the victims.

The government plans to release a statement after the bill has passed the Diet.

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Drugmakers also must pay up

Four of the five district courts at which hepatitis C sufferers had filed lawsuits ruled that the state failed to stop the virus from spreading. We think the government should openly admit its responsibility for this mess.

Sufferers will be paid compensation of 12 million yen, 20 million yen or 40 million yen, depending on their symptoms. If a victim's condition deteriorates further, the government will pay additional compensation. This is an appropriate measure, given that hepatitis C is a progressive disease.

The state and two drug companies that produced the contaminated blood products will set up a fund of 20 billion yen to compensate the victims. The proportion of this amount to be shouldered by the state and the drugmakers remains unsettled. However, since the drug companies have primary responsibility for the occurrence of the drug-induced disease, they should pay their fair share of setting up the fund.

About 10,000 people are thought to have been infected by the tainted blood products. About 1,000 people with hepatitis C, which can lead to chronic hepatitis and liver cancer, are likely to be eligible for compensation.

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Govt had to respond

The plaintiffs and their lawyers were unbending in their appeals for uniform compensation for all hepatitis C sufferers. However, the definition of "all sufferers" was not necessarily as obvious as they perhaps assumed.

When the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said the compensation could snowball to an enormous sum unless a clear definition was reached, the plaintiffs and their lawyers clarified for the first time that the number of eligible patients would be about 1,000.

Although there were some ambiguities such as the definition of "all sufferers," the despair of the plaintiffs and their legal teams left the government with no choice but to respond.

The courts will determine whether each patient is eligible for financial assistance. Unfortunately, discarded medical records and other reasons will hamstring some patients' attempts to prove they were administered a tainted blood product. We hope judgments in these cases will do the right thing and take certifications by doctors and other items of proof into account.

The Democratic Party of Japan said the outline of the envisioned bill has its merits because it clarifies the responsibility of the state for this drug-related dispute.

In deliberations in the House of Councillors, where the DPJ holds a majority, the largest opposition party should cooperate to ensure the bill is passed quickly.

(From the Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 30, 2007)

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp:80/dy/editorial/20071230TDY04308.htm