Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Editorials
Saturday, February 26, 2000Sex-offender facility
makes people angryTHE state Health Department touched a nerve in the Pearl City community when word got around that the department planned to establish a juvenile sex-offender treatment facility at Waimano Training School and Hospital.The issue: The state wants to locate a juvenile sex-offender treatment facility at Waimano Training School and Hospital in Pearl City.
Department officials maintain that the facility would be no threat to the community, but some residents don't believe it. Many fear attacks on their children by the patients. The facility is half a mile from Pearl City High School and Momilani Elementary.
At a recent meeting, a crowd of 300 jammed the Pearl City Cultural Center to oppose the project. Near the end of the program, Rep. Noboru Yonamine, who represents the area, asked the people if they wanted the facility. No one answered in the affirmative; the "noes" were thunderous.
The project is part of the state's attempt to comply with a federal court order, the Felix consent decree, that requires the state to provide community-based mental health services for youths. The Waimano site was selected because the state owns the property and the program is consistent with previous uses. It would be housed in one of the existing buildings.
Treatment would be provided for boys aged 12-17 who have committed sex offenses. Because Hawaii now lacks such facilities, violators are sent to the mainland. The plan calls for a maximum of 10 boys in the facility.
Anita Swanson, deputy director of behavioral health, said security will be ensured for all activities. The facility will be locked and will have monitoring equipment and a high ratio of staff to patients. She said the youths to be treated are not "predatory."
The problem appears to be that the department didn't move quickly and effectively enough to provide all the facts. In this age of distrust of government, that was a big mistake. People think the state was trying to sneak the project past them.
State Health Director Bruce Anderson blamed opposition to the project on "misinformation and misperceptions."
Anderson said, "These boys are now located in facilities on the mainland, far from their families and other emotional supports. Bringing them home and providing a secure setting where they can receive the most appropriate treatment is a priority for the state and their families."
This appears to be a worthy project, with adequate safeguards. It's important to establish such facilities to provide needed treatment.
But the Pearl City residents are saying loudly not in my backyard. At this point, it will take considerable persuading to get them to change their minds.
Sentences in Japan’s
tainted-blood scandalJAPAN has belatedly come to grips with the scandal involving contaminated blood products that left hundreds infected with the AIDS virus. Prison sentences have been handed down for three former drug company executives convicted of permitting the sale of unheated blood-clotting agents years after they were deemed unsafe by medical authorities.
It's an appalling story of disregard for patient safety, apparently for the sake of private profit and national pride. A similar scandal broke in France, resulting in the prosecution of government health officials.
In the Japanese case, the three former executives of Green Cross Corp., Renzo Matsushita, 79, Tadakazu Suyama, 72, and Takehiko Kawano, 69, pleaded guilty in 1997. Matsushita was given a two-year prison term, Suyama 18 months and Kawano 16 months.
Some considered the prison terms too short in view of the gravity of the crimes. Several hundred hemophiliacs are believed to have died from the tainted products; 1,800 were infected with HIV.
The prison terms were too brief to be called justice, said Ryuhei Kawada, one of the hemophiliacs who became infected with HIV. "It's unforgivable," Kawada said. "The penalty must be heavier for profits gained by killing people."
The government has also been implicated in the scandal. Officials have admitted they were aware in 1983 of the dangers of hemophiliacs contracting HIV through blood products, having been warned by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But they waited until 1985 to approve safe, heat-treated coagulants.
Even then Green Cross continued to sell its unsafe supplies. The three defendants approved the sale of the tainted blood products in March 1985 and did not recall the products even after the company began selling heated agents in January 1986.
Victims have suggested that drug companies wanted to postpone imports of safe blood products so they could develop heat treatments themselves. Green Cross has paid about $216 million in compensation to victims and bereaved families.
This was a case of official and business callousness resulting in the spread of a devastating disease. When such outrages occur, even in a wealthy and highly educated country like Japan, it leaves people wary of government assurances on health issues, which can lead to more unfortunate results.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
