EDITORIAL: Hepatitis B redress

Many people contracted hepatitis B through group vaccinations they received as children. The government, which conducted vaccination, has a responsibility to redress victims. But vaccination is not the only route of infection.

If compensation is limited to patients who have firm proof that they underwent vaccination, some people who should be eligible would not be covered.

On the other hand, if a standard that is too broad is applied, the government would have no choice than to pay compensation to people who developed the disease through other means for which it is not responsible.

What standard should be applied to recognize eligible patients? The government has presented its "basic thinking" about this difficult question in negotiations for a settlement in a group lawsuit filed by patients seeking compensation.

The government had insisted that patients would not be eligible unless vaccination can be confirmed by mother-and-child health handbooks. But now, officials say those without the handbooks would also be eligible provided that they can prove they underwent vaccination.

Of the approximately 450 plaintiffs, about 60 percent say they no longer have their mother-and-child health handbooks. Given this fact, the decision is reasonable.

The problem is what kind of proof should be sought. The government only said it would discuss the matter with the plaintiffs.

We hope the both parties would come up with a standard to recognize patients as broadly as possible. The Sapporo District Court, which recommended a settlement, had called for "a decision to broaden the scope of redress."

In its "basic thinking," the government also demanded that patients, including those who have their handbooks, provide proof that they did not get the disease by mother-to-child transmission. In case their mothers are dead, it called on patients to show that their older siblings are not infected.

In a lawsuit filed by five patients, the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the government is responsible, saying that the cause of infection was group vaccinations. The decision came after the court confirmed test results showing that mother-to-child transmission was not the cause.

The plaintiffs in the Sapporo case are demanding that patients and infected individuals be recognized as eligible for compensation as long as they did not get the disease from their mothers and were younger than 6 from 1948 to 1988 when vaccination was mandatory.

That is all the more reason the plaintiffs are strongly opposed to the government's "basic thinking."

We can very well understand how they feel. Still, the number of hepatitis B patients is estimated at about 70,000, and that of infected persons at between 1.1 million and 1.4 million.

As long as compensation is to be paid from public funds, there is a need to decide the scope of redress by excluding, as much as possible, mother-to-child transmission and causes for which the government is not responsible. Otherwise, it would be difficult to win public understanding toward broad redress.

Hepatitis B infection by group vaccination was caused by reuse of needles and syringes. The danger was known at the time, but practically nothing was done to stop the practice until 1988.

Anyone who was a child during this time could have become infected. This is not someone else's problem. We urge the advancement of broad and reasonable redress.

To solve this difficult problem, it is essential that the government "win public understanding," as health minister Akira Nagatsuma put it. In that sense, it was a right decision for the government to disclose what it presented at the settlement talks after negotiations were over. We expect the government to stick to this method to the end.

--The Asahi Shimbun, July 9