World IN BRIEF : JAPAN : Firm Admits Report on Blood Was False

Controversy over HIV-tainted blood products grew when a leading pharmaceutical firm acknowledged that it had filed a false report about when it withdrew untreated blood products from the market. The disclosure triggered anger among hemophiliacs infected with HIV--the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS--from tainted imported blood products. “Their action is tantamount to murder,” said a member of a group of hemophiliacs seeking compensation from the state and five pharmaceutical firms. Masayuki Nishida, managing director of Green Cross Corp., told a news conference that the company had shipped its untreated blood products for three to 10 months after a date given in a report to the Health and Welfare Ministry in March 1987. The company’s revelation was the latest development in an escalating scandal over the mismanagement of tainted blood products that infected about 1,800 hemophiliacs with HIV.