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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China’s Medically Caused AIDS Epidemic |
| 2004-04-08 |
| Last Updated: Thursday, 8 April, 2004, 08:56 GMT 09:56 UK China sounds alarm on Aids China hid a blood scandal in the 90s which infected entire villages China’s government has called for an increased effort to stop the spread of HIV/Aids, warning of severe punishment for any attempt at a cover-up. Health Minister Wu Yi told officials the epidemic was at a critical point where it could spread from high-risk groups to the wider public. China admits to having more than 800,000 cases of HIV/Aids, but experts say the real figure could be higher. The UN believes at least 10 million Chinese could be HIV positive by 2010. "We can completely contain the momentum if we take it seriously. Otherwise, we will lose this best, fleeting opportunity," Ms Wu told regional health officials at a conference on HIV/Aids in Beijing. "It must be reported timely and faithfully. And any people who intend to hide the epidemic should take responsibility and will be severely punished," the China Daily quoted the minister as saying. This emphasis on openness suggests China has learned lessons from the Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) crisis it suffered last year, which was worsened by an initial attempt by the authorities to suppress news of the disease, preventing adequate prevention measures. China also announced on Thursday the establishment of its first formal research centre on Aids, in Shanghai. ""AIDS is accelerating its spread in China at a horrible speed of 30-40% every year. It is not only a medical issue but a serious social one," said its director, Yan Shaogang. Ms Wu asked local officials to improve education, fight illegal blood sales, circulate condoms and clean needles, and step up surveillance of the disease. A scandal of illegal blood selling operations in central Henan province in the mid-90s infected tens of thousands of people with HIV, which the Chinese authorities went to great lengths to hide. In areas where Aids is rife, local government officials sometimes still try to cover up the extent of the problem, fearful that it could have an impact on inward investment. When it comes to public education, there is still a long way to go. A survey released last year indicated that one in four Chinese in the countryside have never heard of Aids, and only one in five people surveyed knew that HIV could be transmitted through sex. While China has every right to properly earn a higher standard of living for its citizens, all of this must be done in an ethical fashion. So far, China has frequently shown an unwillingness to play by accepted rules. Using prison labor to produce goods for export is a sterling example of their misconduct. Permitting thinly veiled government or military wings to run major corporate interests is another important issue. Certain property speculation deals have also been shown to be a complete farce. Factors like these should be of the greatest concern. China continues to throw its weight around over Taiwan’s potential independence. Not one nation is willing to accept an American let subcontract for sale of conventional submarines to Taiwan due to fear of ruffling China’s delicate tail feathers. China has also exacerbated the crisis in North Korea by selling them critical weapons development technology. There are many other ramifications to China’s conduct as well. Let’s examine the recent SARS outbreak that originated in China. Disregarding whether this virus was the result of poor sanitation or substandard farming practices, the fact remains that China intentionally concealed or misled the world community and international health organizations about the outbreak’s severity until such a time where it could no longer be hidden. This in turn, caused a larger epidemic to happen because travel restrictions were not put in place quickly enough. China was acting in a most putrid sort of self interest by trying to avoid a tourism downturn while putting many other populations at risk. How many billions of dollars did the SARS epidemic cost? How much of it might have been prevented if China had been more transparent about the issue? As an example, Canada’s Asian tourism was off by almost one third for the first half of last year. It was down by almost one quarter for the month of May, 2003 alone. How many millions (if not billions) of lost dollars does that represent? The SARS outbreaks pale in comparison to the medically caused AIDS epidemic. An Associated Press article details how impoverish Chinese peasants have had to rely upon selling blood just to get by. Corrupt aldermen and mayors turn a blind eye to unsanitary and outright dangerous collection practices, while taking bribes for permitting this to happen in their districts. Since the "bloodheads" are only collecting human plasma, there remains a large amount of red blood cells after centrifuging. It was a common practice to pool this blood and divide it back up into a number of portions equal to the (same blood type)donors. Thereafter, it was reinjected back into those people to prevent anemia related complications. The result has been a massive epidemic of AIDS in some of the poorest districts. While China has finally taken measures to prevent this despicable enterprise, it is too late for many thousands of people. How many billions of dollars in NGO or WHO funds will be funneled into China as a result of this? Will the Chinese government take responsibility for turning a blind eye to the unscrupulous practices local governments engaged in? What sort of burden will this place on the developed countries and their contributions towards combating AIDS in other third world countries? China’s pattern of corruption has hatched a whole flock of chickens that are just now coming home to roost. How should this be taken into account as China begins to flex its economic muscle? Should the outside world permit China to maintain such corrupt practices when they have a direct impact on progress being made elsewhere? Should the global community disregard the tremendous economic burden that will be placed upon it due to China’s unwillingness to publish health statistics or enforce transparent business practices? Should China be permitted to expand its economy at the expense of both its people and the quality of aid other nations provide? Should there be a form of excise tax placed upon China’s exports until such a time when they more amply comply with eradication of corruption within their own borders? There is soon to arrive a tidal wave of repercussions arising from China’s underhanded policies. The major economic beneficiary will be China. They will have avoided spending money on law enforcement and yet been rewarded for this selfsame laxity by increases in medical and rural development aid to its ailing population. This sort of parasitic conduct must be thwarted and its costs must be reverted to China’s account books. Until such a time, China should not be allowed to fully participate in global markets. It’s slipshod law enforcement causes crimes against humanity and negatively impacts the global economy. Few nations seem willing to point this out for fear of incurring China’s economic blackmail. There needs to be a concerted effort by the developed nations to force a proper accounting for China’s misdeeds and their unwarranted diversion of funds badly needed elsewhere. In Henan province the residents of Shuang Miao are beginning to die from the "worst medically caused AIDS epidemic in the world." Not just from the virus, but by their own hand as well. In their corrupt greed, those Chinese government officials who profited from bloodhead graft turned a blind eye to the slipshod plasma collection practices that brought about this needless tragedy. Now, in a febrile attempt to lessen the human toll, the government is allowing the use of untested retroviral drugs upon these same hapless victims. Effectively, the Chinese government is permitting Shanghai Desano to turn Shuang Miao into an open air human laboratory. People who were given these new medications suffered such severe side effects that it forced them to stop taking the experimental drugs. That’s not much of a gesture in my book. China has a +120 billion dollar trade deficit with the United States alone. Corrupt bloodsucking politburo leeches easily can afford to divert a small fraction of this enormous capital influx towards the purchase and distribution of proven retroviral drugs. Such medications might go a long way towards helping save the lives of those they threw into the jaws of this meat grinder. The lack of conscience displayed by these communist Mandarins quite possibly exceeds that of the imperial emperors they so triumphantly supplanted. Long ago, China threatened to reverse engineer and begin duplication via chemical synthesis of the complex and difficult to develop (and test) retroviral drugs without compensating those Western companies who invested the funds to discover them. There is a consistent pattern of blackmail that China uses in its diplomacy. Be it in threatening the peaceful nation of Taiwan, other countries and corporations or the entire world population’s health with unchecked outbreaks of the SARS virus. Does anyone think for one minute that the distribution of these untested retroviral drugs is being done out of compassion for the AIDS patients? This is only happening in an attempt to diminish public outrage and lessen the government’s apparent culpability in this mass murder via slow agonizing death. If the government was really serious about this well known and long anticipated epidemic, they would have reduced the billions of yuan spent on their cosmetic space program and attended to more down to earth issues. The Chinese politburo is killing these people as surely as the AIDS virus is. China should not receive one penny of WHO or NGO AIDS funding unless they decommision their extravagant space program. Until such a time, any money sent to China merely frees up that much more cash for them to pour into weapons development or the assimilation of Tibet and Taiwan. Hong Kong is proof enough of how lackluster a sense of commitment they have about keeping their promises. The remaining global community must be prepared to stand back and let China implode due to this self-inflicted wound. If they are unwilling to curtail monstrous trade deficits and burgeoning military expenditure, then losing half of their population will place a dramatic damper on such ambitions. We have no obligation to finance China’s corrupt vision of economic and military domination. |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #2 I agree totally with your comments. |
| Posted by: Anonymous5055 2004-05-30 11:38:22 AM |
| #1 EDITORS: Any chance of reposting this one for the 10th? This is an issue that has largely gone unnoticed and really needs to be addressed. I'd be very grateful if you could give this another go round in the morning. Thank you. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-09 2:50:12 AM |