Medical Business Ethics: The HIV-Tainted-Blood Affair in Japan

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Advances in Bioethics

ISSN: 1479-3709
Series editor(s): Dr Wayne Shelton

Subject Area: Health Care Management/Healthcare

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Document Information:
Title:	Medical Business Ethics: The HIV-Tainted-Blood Affair in Japan
Author(s):	Tomohiro Tanaka
Volume:	8 Editor(s): Takao Takahashi ISBN: 978-0-76231-206-1 eISBN: 978-1-84950-343-3
Citation:	Tomohiro Tanaka (2005), Medical Business Ethics: The HIV-Tainted-Blood Affair in Japan, in Takao Takahashi (ed.) Taking Life and Death Seriously - Bioethics from Japan (Advances in Bioethics, Volume 8), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.253-273
DOI:	10.1016/S1479-3709(05)08810-2 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Article type:	Chapter Item
Abstract:	Through an analysis of the HIV-Tainted-Blood Affair in Japan, this paper explores why pharmaceutical companies act in a socially irresponsible manner. The paper suggests encouraging members of these corporations to become more conscious of their responsibility to society by developing themselves as professionals. The analysis shows that drug disasters are not caused only by a particular “special villain,” but by the structural conflict between medical professional ethics and the profit making motivation of pharmaceutical companies. In other words, the behaviors of pharmaceutical companies fall into the interstices of professional ethics.