Hepatitis sufferers, Mitsubishi Tanabe to reach accord in Sept.

SENDAI, Sept. 13 Kyodo - A group of hepatitis C suffers and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp. are expected to strike a basic accord possibly by the end of September that will effectively put an end to their legal battle of nearly six years, plaintiffs' lawyers said
Saturday.
If the plaintiffs and Mitsubishi Tanabe conclude their court struggle, Nippon
Pharmaceutical Co. will be the only remaining defendant as the hepatitis C
sufferers and the state have already reached a settlement.
Mitsubishi Tanabe has been involved in the case as one of its predecessors was
the now-defunct Green Cross Corp., a maker of fibrinogen blood products through
which a number of people were infected with hepatitis C.
Their lawyers said that given the likelihood that Mitsubishi Tanabe may not
agree to reach a settlement with some of the plaintiffs, all the plaintiffs who
have settled with the state will drop their case against the pharmaceutical
maker after the basic accord is reached.
The plaintiffs held a meeting in Sendai earlier Saturday and confirmed the
policy, the lawyers said.
Yoshiaki Yamanishi, chief secretary of a group of hepatitis C plaintiffs who
filed lawsuits in Osaka, said, ''We thought it would be better to focus our
energy on realizing permanent measures (to help hepatitis C patients) rather
than continuing fighting.''
He said the policy change does not alleviate the responsibility of the drug
makers and it will not affect the share of contributions to the patients
between the state and the drug makers.
In a district court ruling some plaintiffs were not confirmed as having been
administered blood products, and the lawyers indicated during the Saturday
meeting that it will be difficult for Mitsubishi Tanabe to reach a settlement
with these unrecognized plaintiffs.
Since the plaintiffs called for unified action in their trials, the lawyers
concluded that the plaintiffs will seek an end to the legal battle with
Mitsubishi Tanabe.
For the drug maker's part, Mitsubishi Tanabe has already informed the
plaintiffs that it will seek an endorsement at a board meeting of a draft basic
accord in which it will recognize its liability and offer an apology.
If the draft of the basic accord is endorsed, the president of Mitsubishi
Tanabe is expected to meet the plaintiffs, apologize to them and sign the basic
agreement, the lawyers said.
The lawsuits were filed at several district courts across Japan starting in
October 2002 by people who contracted hepatitis C through tainted blood
products during operations or the delivery of babies from around 1970 to the
early 1990s.
Green Cross made the tainted fibrinogen blood products that caused a large
number of people to contract hepatitis C.
In January this year, the Diet enacted a law to offer blanket relief to people
who contracted hepatitis C through tainted blood products, paying 12 million to
40 million yen per patient.
Hepatitis C is a liver illness mainly transmitted by blood. Although acute
symptoms are relatively mild compared with other types of hepatitis, it tends
to become chronic and can develop into cirrhosis and liver cancer.