Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - 4 Oct 1995
Miho Yoshikawa

In the suits filed in 1989, haemophiliacs sought compensation from the state and five pharmaceutical companies for having been infected with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), which causes AIDS, through the tainted blood products.

The Tokyo District Court and the Osaka District Court are due to recommend a compromise calling for the state and the pharmaceutical companies to pay 45 million yen ($450,000) to each plaintiff, the newspapers quoted unnamed judicial sources as saying.

It would be the largest compensation ever paid in a drug-related lawsuit.

The compromise was expected to call on the state to shoulder 40 percent of the burden of the payment, and is virtually expected to acknowledge the government's responsibility for failing to take swift action, the Yomiuri Shimbun's report said.

Lawyers handling the lawsuit could not be reached for comment and the pharmaceutical firms said they had no prior information about details of the recommended compromise.

An official of Green Cross Corp said: "All we know is that we are going to be informed about the out-of-court settlement at 6 p.m. on October 6."

"We will give the matter our sincere consideration, but other than that we can't comment on it," he said.

The other defendants besides Green Cross are Chemo Sero Therapeutic Research Institute, Baxter Ltd, an arm of Baxter International Inc, Bayer Yakuhin Ltd, an arm of Bayer AG and Nippon Zoki Pharmaceutical Co.

The plaintiffs had demanded 115 million yen ($1.15 million) each, according to news reports. Of the 219 plaintiffs, 91 have already died, the Yomiuri said.

Japanese authorities were slow in grappling with the issue of AIDS, which was initially widely seen as a disease that afflicted foreigners.

Lawyers and AIDS activists said the government and pharmaceutical companies failed to take action after the dangers of contracting HIV through contaminated blood products began to be publicised in the United States in the early 1980s.

The Health and Welfare Ministry has said that at the time there was no proof imported blood products were the cause of HIV contamination among haemophiliacs, and that it cannot be held responsible.

There were 1,026 people with AIDS recorded in Japan at the end of August, while another 2,893 were recorded HIV positive, according to Health and Welfare Ministry data.

According to the data, 1,803 haemophiliacs had contracted HIV and another 530 had developed AIDS. The ministry estimates there are about 5,000 haemophiliacs in Japan.

The government, which last month finally resolved a bitter 40-year-old compensation row over a mercury-poisoning disaster, pledged to act promptly on the issue on Wednesday.

"(The government) would like to take swift action," Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama told a parliamentary session.

He did not indicate what action the government might take.

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