About Saturdays speaker at school- actually, it was pretty cool and I feel totally ignorant for not knowing more about the situation. The speaker, Ryuhei Kawada, has quite the life story to tell. Diagnosed as a hemophaeliac from an early age, he contracted HIV at thed age of 10 by using tainted blood supplies from the Green Cross Corporation. That is sad enough, but on top of that, Green Cross had access to safe, heat-treated blood, but did not use it due to business concerns. In the end, hundreds of Japanese hemopeliacs contracted HIV from these blood supplies.

 In the legal battles that followed, he came out as an HIV infected hemopheliac and campaigned for nationwide support. The victims won the various court cases, he went to college, and now he was just recently elected to the House of Councilors in the Japanese Diet. Even more remarkable is that even after having HIV for 20 years, he is still going strong and has yet to acquire AIDS. So like I said, quite a remarkable story, and now as a politician Ryuhei Kawada may make an even bigger impact in the future.