The Supreme Court earlier this month upheld a suspended prison sentence for a former health ministry official who had been found guilty of failing to prevent the sale and use of HIV-contaminated blood products that resulted in the death of a patient suffering from impaired liver function. It concluded more than 11 years of criminal investigations and trials linked to the 1980s¡¯ HIV outbreak caused by tainted blood products. AIDS caused by the infection killed more than 600 people, many of them hemophiliacs.

Although the top court decision concerned just one bureaucrat, it should be taken as a ruling aimed at the entire health ministry concerning its handling of the blood products in question. Government officials in charge of medical and pharmaceutical affairs should examine their behavior.

In September 2001, the Tokyo District Court sentenced the official, who headed the health ministry¡¯s biologics division from July 1984 to June 1986, to one year in prison, suspended for two years. The Tokyo High Court upheld the ruling in March 2005. The high court said that, toward the end of 1985, he could have foreseen that continued use of the unheated blood products would cause spread of HIV infection.

The Supreme Court said that while he knew that a large amount of unheated blood products was tainted with HIV and was aware of the danger of death resulting from the use of such blood products, the official neglected his duty to stop their sale and use and to caution other divisions of the ministry to take necessary actions. It concluded that the patient was treated with a tainted blood product in April 1986 and subsequently died from a disease transmitted by that product in 1995.

The court decision is the first that has finalized a judgment of guilt against a public servant accused of omission. This shows that bureaucrats have been protected from indictment in crimes of omission thanks to the nature of bureaucracy in which responsibility is so diffused that it has become difficult to pinpoint. Hopefully, the Supreme Court decision will deter public servants from irresponsible and thoughtless decisions.