Ex-Health Official Held in AIDS Scandal

Japanese prosecutors arrested a former Health Ministry official on charges of professional negligence resulting in two deaths in a decade-old scandal involving HIV-contaminated blood products. Akihito Matsumura, 55, is the first government official to be arrested in the scandal. The arrest could lead to wider investigations into the alleged role of the government in the case, in which about 400 hemophiliacs died. Matsumura is accused of failing to order the recall of untreated blood products even though he knew unheated products could be contaminated with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.