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  3. For someone whose life has been shattered, Hiroshi Shimizu is remarkably calm

For someone whose life has been shattered, Hiroshi Shimizu is remarkably calm

游客2025-04-16  0
问题    For someone whose life has been shattered, Hiroshi Shimizu is remarkably calm. In a cramped Tokyo law office, the subdued, bitter man in his 30s——using an assumed name for the interview relates how he became infected with the HIV virus from tainted blood products sold by Japanese hospitals to hemophiliacs during the mid-1980s. "I was raped,"says Shimizu. "I never thought doctors would give me bad medicine."
   Last year, Shimizu was shocked when a doctor newly transferred to his hospital broke the news. Four years earlier, he had asked his previous doctor if he could safely marry. "He told me: ’There’s absolutely no problem,’ even though he knew [I was infected] ," Shimizu says. "I could have passed it to my wife." Luckily, he hasn’t.
   Shimizu is one of more than 2,000 hemophiliacs and their loved ones infected with the deadly virus before heat-treated blood products became available in Japan. It’s a tragedy——and now it’s a national scandal. In recent weeks, the country has been rocked by charges that Japanese drug and hospital companies kept selling tainted blood even after the AIDS threat was proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Even worse is the charge that the Japanese government knowingly allowed this dangerous practice as part of a policy to protect domestic companies from foreign competition. Japan’s bureaucrats are already under attack for their role in the banking fiasco. As the AIDS scandal unfolds, Japanese confidence in government could erode even further. Big settlements in a related lawsuit may also set a precedent in other AIDS liability cases around the world.
   The origins of the tragedy go back to 1983. By then, scientists were closing in on the virus that causes AIDS, and U.S. health authorities mandated that all blood products be heat-treated to protect hemophiliacs and patients from infection. Japanese authorities were concerned as well: the Health & Welfare Ministry formed an AIDS study group headed by the country’s foremost hemophilia expert, Dr. Takeshi Abe.
   RAIN AND SLEET. What happened next has only just been revealed, thanks to an investigation by new Health Minister Naoto Kan. According to investigators, the ministry group on July 4, 1983, recommended banning untreated blood imports. Since no heat-treated products were then available from Japanese companies, the group also advised allowing emergency imports of beat-treated blood from companies such as U.S. drag giant Baxter International Inc.
   But a week later, the recommendation was reversed. According to memos recovered from the records of Atsuaki Gunji, then head of the ministry’s Biological & antibiotics Div., the recommendation was overturned because it would "deal a blow" to domestic companies. Japan’s marketers of blood products bought imports of untreated blood——and they did not have their heat-treatment processes yet. The ministry insisted that Baxter conduct two years of clinical testing in Japan before it used its new heat treatment there. Domestic drug companies, led by Osaka-based Green Cross Ltd. rushed to develop their own treatment processes. Meanwhile, Baxter and other foreign companies that already sold untreated blood products in Japan had to continue the practice if they wanted to stay in the market.
   The recent revelations have sparked some startling events in a country where discussion of AIDS is still largely taboo. In February, health Minister Kan made front-page news when he officially apologized to HIV-infected hemophiliacs and families who had staged a 72-house vigil in rain and sleet outside the ministry. [br] The incident mentioned in the passage originated as early as 1983 when ______.
选项 A、the virus which causes AIDS were about to be discovered
B、the Japanese companies were permitted to import untreated blood products from U.S
C、the Japanese government’s bureaucrats were severely attacked
D、the Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry adhered to the policy that no untreated blood should be imported from abroad
答案 D
解析 文章第4至5段明确指出了答案。
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