> China's AIDS Disaster: Gao Yaojie is Not Sensationalizing the Problem
>
> Gao Yaojie is Not Sensationalizing the Problem
>
> By Yan Lieshan China Business Herald (an 800,000 circulation daily
> PRC business and financial paper; the author is an editor with the
> Nanfang group of newspapers.)
>
> http://www.cb-h.com/shshshow.asp?n_id=30676
>
> AIDS is a malignant epidemic disease that seriously threatens the
> health of the Chinese people. No one can close their eyes to this any
> longer but there is some disagreement about just what are the most
> important modes of transmission of the HIV virus. Some experts and
> officials believe that sexual promiscuity and injection using dirty
> needles are the most important transmission modes. However, China's
> first person for AIDS prevention, Dr. Gao Yaojie that the most important
> mode for HIV transmission is still blood collection, blood transfusion
> and medical products made from blood, and so argues that the government
> needs to focus its attention more on blood collection, transfusion and
> blood products and not on pushing for virtue and self-control on the
> part of high risk groups and spreading condoms widely.
>
> In my view, they are both right, and both are needed just that in
> different regions there are different people and so different measures
> need to be taken. As for the view of some officials and experts that Dr.
> Gao Yaojie's views are already outmoded, early in 2007 in my article
> "Dr. Gao Yaojie Sick at Heart", I wrote that Gao Yaojie "In her blog on
> Sina.com wrote something that is confirmed in economic theory and
> practice. She wrote 'With China being short of blood, how can illegal
> blood collection be controlled? A poor person sells 800 cc of blood for
> 50 RMB, so how can the bloodhead [illegal blood collector and seller]
> give up the tremendous profits that can be reaped'?"
>
> Recent press reports confirm this fact and again confirm Gao
> Yaojie's judgment.
>
> Baiyi of Guangdong Province, which manufactures injectable
> immunoglobulin was found not to be manufacturing in line with
> regulations. Clinical practice found that some of the products of that
> company were found to have caused some patients to become positive for
> Hepatitis B antibodies as a result. On January 26, 2007 the Xinmin
> Evening News reported on a journalist's undercover visit to a Lianshan
> plasma collection center of the Baiyi of Guangdong. The journalist found
> that the process for collecting blood that gave reason for serious concern.
>
> On January 24, 2007, the journalist went to that blood plasma
> collection station and found a notice posted on the front door: "This
> Company announced that plasma collection ends tomorrow, collection times
> will be announced later. The notice was dated January 22, 2007. That is,
> blood plasma collections continued until the day before the Ministry of
> Health, State Food and Drug Management Commission issued a public notice
> that there were problems with the immunoglobulin products of the Baiyi
> Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., even though this company had previously been
> listed by the concerned department of Guangdong Province.
>
> We need to understand clearly that Chinese reality cannot be changed
> merely by one or two laws or regulations.
>
> The second reason why there is still a problem with illegal blood
> collection and blood transfusions from blood that was not safely
> collected and processed is that some companies without a conscience
> operate illegally for the sake of big profits. The article revealed that
> the hidden risk caused by long term improper management of blood
> collection did not end when the blood plasma sold the plasma to a
> company. There are many hidden risks to blood collection - many of the
> people doing blood collection have not been properly trained; at first
> they checked the ID card and the household registry of the person
> selling blood, but later they didn't do that; "one 500 cc bag of blood
> plasma means 80 RMB for the blood seller. About 100 people come to sell
> blood each day... Even after allowing for the costs, the company earns
> astonishingly high profits from this."
>
> Those criticizing Gao Yaojie said that blood plasma collection in
> China is already strictly regulated. However, this latest article
> together with the report on the Guizhou blood plasma collection station
> in "Nanfeng Chuang" shows that illegal blood collection behavior by
> legal permitted blood collection stations is a big problem. As for the
> so-called "the production of blood products goes through three
> checkpoints so that even if the collected blood has a virus, it will be
> certain that after going through those three checkpoints the virus will
> have been killed." The Baiyi case proves that this is just a fond hope
> and government departments need to strengthen their regulatory
> oversight. This time the people were infected with hepatitis, next time
> it could be HIV. They spread the same way.
>
> If we do not address these problems properly, we are acting no
> differently when we failed to ignore the threat of HIV early on in the
> epidemic. Once we make this kind of mistake, it is very hard to make up
> for the error. The words of the old lady Gao Yaojie may well be putting
> some special emphasis on this kind of hazard, but she is certainly not
> being sensational.