最新一期的<<经济学家>>第一次报道中国HBV,里面专门提到肝胆相照网站,全文如下 Hepatitis B in China B is for bigotryNov 16th 2006 | BEIJING From The Economist print edition One-tenth of China's population risks discrimination
IN CHINA, as elsewhere, people with HIV/AIDS often suffer discrimination. But a far bigger group of virus carriers in China encounters similar bigotry. For 130m Chinese carrying the hepatitis B virus, which can cause fatal liver diseases, it can be hard to get a job—or even a decent education, as a group of schoolchildren in the far west recently found out. Carriers of hepatitis B often show no symptoms. In China, many first learn they are infected when they apply for work or a place at university and undergo medical examinations. In September elite state-run boarding schools in Urumqi, about 2,400km (1,500 miles) west of Beijing, gave new entrants a blood test and barred entry to 19 children found with the virus. Hepatitis B, like HIV, cannot be transmitted through food or casual contact. But victims of discrimination are often reluctant to draw attention to their plight. However, these parents were in anguish at the loss of a golden educational opportunity. A small local NGO, the Snow Lotus HIV/AIDS Education Institute, took up the children's cause and published details on the internet. State-run newspapers picked up the story. The authorities in Urumqi, however, have dug in their heels. Chang Kun, who founded the NGO, fled to Beijing after police raided his office and seized his computer and health-education materials in October. He saw this as retaliation for his campaigns on behalf of the children as well as 156 hepatitis B-carrying university students in Urumqi, expelled from their colleges last year. Seven of the children's families tried to sue the local education bureau, but came under pressure. Activists say some of the parents were told by police to drop the case. A lawyer representing the parents, Zhang Yuanxin, says the parents agreed to do so this week. State-controlled newspapers had already gone quiet about the issue. Lu Jun, who runs a website in the central city of Zhengzhou to provide information for fellow hepatitis B carriers, says that there has been less international pressure on China to act than on HIV/AIDS. This year China issued a statute banning discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS, but it has yet to do the same for hepatitis B, which kills many more people in China than does AIDS. In 2003 a hepatitis B-carrying student stabbed and killed an official because he was denied a civil-service job. He was executed. Since then, the central government has begun to act. Early last year it declared that carriers would no longer be barred from government posts. This month it banned advertisements featuring treatments for certain conditions, including infection with hepatitis B. Such advertisements often convey misinformation about how the virus is spread. Their message, not the government's, seems to rule in places like Urumqi. http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8173647
|