China marked World AIDS Day yesterday by opening up a bit more about its troubled history with the HIV virus. State media reported that the Health Ministry revised upward—without explanation—the number of Chinese who have died from the disease since the 1980s to 68,315, from 49,845 a year ago.
Chen Bingzhong
.However, the real figure is probably much higher. Beijing spent much of the last two decades trying to cover up the extent of the disease's spread, and ignoring its causes. In particular, in Henan province rural residents sold their blood plasma to government and private collection stations that used unsanitary methods and infected perhaps 100,000 people with the HIV virus. About 10,000 of them have died of the disease. Provincial officials silenced activists who initially sounded the alarm, meaning that most of the infected were exposed unnecessarily.
Now Chen Bingzhong, a former high-ranking health official, has stepped forward to demand accountability for this crime. And he is pointing the finger at two of the nine most powerful men in the land, Politburo Standing Committee Members Li Changchun and Li Keqiang. The former is currently head of the Communist Party's propaganda apparatus, and the latter is expected to replace Wen Jiabao as the nation's premier in 2012. Both held the post of Henan party secretary in the 1990s and early 2000s while the blood contamination was happening.
Mr. Chen's public accusation would normally cost him his freedom, but since the 78-year-old official is suffering from liver cancer he may be immune to the Party's intimidation. In any case, his act of conscience deserves applause. Much like Jiang Yanyong, the military doctor who blew the whistle on the SARS cover-up in 2003 and then called for the reappraisal of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, Mr. Chen simply demands that leaders be held accountable for their actions: "They have lied to their superiors and hidden the truth from the common people. They are guilty of serious dereliction of duty."
No comments:
Post a Comment