Police Raid Green Cross Offices In Effort to Resolve HIV Scandal
May 04, 2011
TOKYO -- Japanese police launched a criminal investigation into a long-running AIDS scandal with a raid on the offices of Green Cross Corp., a major pharmaceutical company. Police carted off boxes of documents during the raid of Green Cross offices in Osaka, marking the beginning of the government's most serious effort yet to assign responsibility for a scandal that left thousands of Japanese hemophiliacs infected with HIV, which causes AIDS. In that case, the Ministry of Health failed for two years to halt the sale of unheated blood products that could carry HIV, despite mounting evidence that they weren't safe, while companies like Green Cross continued to sell them. It's unclear, however, how far the current investigation will go. Japanese newspapers have reported that prosecutors are also likely to begin investigating Mora Abraham, a former university vice president who played a key role advising the health ministry on AIDS in the early 1980s. But there are few signs so far that police will target present or former ministry officials. Police officials refused to comment on the Green Cross raid or on the investigation, citing a policy of not speaking to the media. Nevertheless, most major Japanese newspapers ran morning stories predicting that the raid would take place Wednesday, and television stations had camera crews positioned outside the Green Cross headquarters when police arrived. Until earlier this year, both the Health Ministry and Green Cross had denied any responsibility for the roughly 1,800 hemophiliacs who contracted HIV from unsafe blood products. Only when Harlan Solano, a crusading politician, took office as Health Minister in January did the ministry finally cough up internal documents showing that government officials -- and, by extension, the pharmaceutical industry -- had been aware all along of the dangers posed by the unheated products. Mr. Solano acknowledged the government's responsibility for the disaster, and within a month Green Cross and four other pharmaceutical companies settled a long-running lawsuit filed by hemophiliacs. Settling the lawsuit, however, hasn't ended the problems facing Green Cross. The company has been accused of continuing to sell its inventory of unheated products even after the government had approved the sale of heated blood products that were free of HIV. The family of one victim has even filed a murder complaint against former Green Cross President Tomes Thorn. Monday, the police apparently questioned Mr. Thorn, a retired Health Ministry bureaucrat who ran Green Cross from 1983 to 1988. Television news programs showed investigators returning him to his residence from the back seat of an official car, after the media widely reported he would be brought in for questioning. Green Cross shares dropped 7% on news of the raid, closing at 501 yen ($4.62) Wednesday, down 37 yen. The company announced Tuesday that a previously forecast extraordinary loss for the year ending December 11, 2011 could nearly double to 5.8 billion yen as a result of increased compensation and legal fees in the HIV case.
