[e-drug] Asian Wall Street Journal: Five dollars per life

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E-drug: Asian Wall Street Journal: Five dollars per life
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[Crossposted from SIGN with thanks, 3 stories in one. This tragedy was also 
covered in BBC World, Reporters this week. Appalling conditions in the 
health facilites and lack of all kind of drugs made a deep impression. KM]

"Five Dollars Per Life" [Editorial]
Asian Wall Street Journal (06.01.01)

The editors examined China's failure to address the spread of AIDS. 
"China,"
they began, "is cruel to its own citizens in so many ways that it becomes
difficult to muster a sense of outrage. But every once in a while, a story
comes along that horrifies on a different level.... Over the past year,
another such story has been unfolding in rural Henan province, where
thousands of peasants who sold their blood to the government are now dying
of AIDS, while Beijing sticks its head in the sand."

The editors described the traveling blood banks that paid $5 per pint of
villagers' blood, the process for which "created HIV infection rates of 65%
to 80% in some villages." Local press was barred from reporting on the 
blood
banks or the subsequent HIV infection rates, and only a courageous few
defied the ban. Then, Dr. Gao Yaoji, a 74-year-old retired gynecologist,
entered the picture and "spent her energy and her pension trying to educate
and help the dying villagers...." For this work she was selected to be
honored by the US-based Global Health Council.  But Chinese officials,
"fearing the trip would embarrass the country, denied her a passport to
travel to the ceremony" this week.

"...Her absence will do more to expose China's failure to address the 
spread
of AIDS than her presence ever could," the editors wrote. Although China 
has
received praise in the media for "acknowledging" the AIDS epidemic, simple
acknowledgments "obscure the fact that China has avoided taking some basic
measures to stop contagion through the blood supply because doing so would
mean acknowledging the negligence of officials," the editors wrote. 
"....Dr.
Gao's commitment to helping the sick when no one else would should be
honored around the world. When it comes time for her to receive the award,
we hope Kofi Annan asks why the courageous doctor isn't there," they
concluded.

---

"Chinese Villagers Dying of AIDS Make Desperate Appeal for Help"
Agence France Presse (05.30.01)

A group of seven peasants from Wenlou village in central China said
yesterday that the government had done almost nothing to help those dying
from AIDS, orphaned by AIDS or too poor to buy AIDS medicines. The group,
which included two young boys whose parents died from AIDS and an elderly
woman who lost two adult children, traveled hundreds of miles to Beijing
from the village in a last ditch appeal for help. They risked retribution 
to
bring a letter written by village leaders that accused the local 
authorities
of indifference and claimed that a clinic that opened in the village is
insufficient. The letter also accused the staff of pilfering medicine and
spending their time drinking and playing cards.

According to reports, the villagers contracted HIV by selling blood when
scores of blood purchasing stations were set up in the province in the
mid-1980s. The stations, both legal ones set up by health officials and
illegal ones, had poor safety standards. The process involved pooling the
blood in a tub and, after extracting plasma, pumping it back into the paid
donors. They were outlawed in 1998.

The villagers in Wenlou used the money to build mud-brick houses, as well 
as
to pay taxes and school fees. Two years ago villagers began dying, and so
far more than 40 have died and four others have committed suicide because
they could not afford proper medicine, the villagers said. The village has
only received small donations from individuals and some flour from the Hong
Kong Red Cross, and residents suspect the local authorities have pocketed
other donations. Local authorities have also reportedly tried to cover up
the problem to avoid any blame: Reporters have been stopped from going near
the village and one volunteer doctor was also ordered out.

---

"China Blocks Trip to US by AIDS Award Honoree"
Washington Post (05.30.01) John Pomfret

A retired Chinese physician who is at the forefront of a movement to expose
the link between a blood sales racket and an AIDS outbreak in central China
has been denied permission to travel to the United States to receive a
humanitarian award, she and others involved said today. The doctor, Gao
Yaojie, had been expected to travel to the United States by tomorrow to
receive the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights from the
Global Health Council, a US-based nonprofit group. Gao, a 74- year-old
retired gynecologist, said that she was denied a passport because she was
accused of "working for anti-China forces." "She's never traveled outside 
of
China before," said Laurel Mackin, a spokesperson for the Global Health
Council. "She got a visa, but unfortunately she couldn't get a passport."

For the last two years, Gao has led efforts to stem the spread of AIDS in
rural Henan province. AIDS erupted in the region in the mid-1990s because
thousands of poor farmers sold their blood to supplement their incomes.
Blood dealers reused needles and employed machines that mixed donors' 
blood.
Once HIV entered the supply, the virus spread quickly through the region.
According to sources close to the AIDS problem in Henan, Gao's apparent
misstep was that she confronted the provincial health department because it
had been a leader of the for-profit blood drive that has resulted in scores
of deaths.

  Gao said she planned to use the $20,000 award to print copies of an AIDS
  prevention guide for villagers, but now she fears that the government 
will
  prevent her from receiving the money.


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