The Red Plague - How communism gave us SARS

WSJ ^ | CLAUDIA ROSETT | May 14, 2003

[Tailgunner Joe]

It's spring, and for China's regime that means it's time to send out the annual bullying letters warning off any nation that might be tempted to back democratic Taiwan for observer status at the World Health Organization.

Right on schedule, China's mission to the United Nations in Geneva has been hand-delivering a letter in recent days to missions friendly to Taiwan. China's official letter proclaims that Beijing's rulers have "always cared for the people in Taiwan." The letter goes on to warn that Taiwan's desire to participate as an observer at next Monday's opening of the World Health Assembly in Geneva is "immoral," and for any nation to table an invitation to Taiwan's democratically elected government would be a "grave violation" of U.N. rules, deserving, in Beijing's view, "the condemnation of the international community."

[Tailgunner Joe]

SARS CRISIS: DON'T RULE OUT LINKAGES TO CHINA'S BIOWARFARE

[aristeides]

Yes, I think the author is hinting pretty broadly in the last paragraphs that SARS may be a product of the Chicom biowarfare program.

[prairiebreeze]

Hmmmm. Yup. 'Course I've always been thinking that.

Prairie

[Prince Charles]

Bttt.

[ex-Texan]

I agree. Take a peek at that 12 Monkeys because now the known death rate is about 21%. At the time this web site was put up it was only about 4.5%. In any event, if the virus hits in the U.S., just the rate of infection is scary enough.

[Quix]

Wonderful though sad article. Thanks.

[Allan]

ping

[Cicero]

Claudia Rosett did that excellent article for WSJ (and another for the NY Times) on corruption and financial chicanery in the UN oil for food program for Iraq.

It's great to see so many really excellent reporters springing up amidst the desolation of modern journalism.

[cgk]

One recent product of China's health-care arrangements has been the spread of AIDS via hideously irresponsible techniques such as collecting blood for plasma and then retransfusing pooled, processed blood back into donors, in some instances infecting entire villages. When a brave Chinese doctor, Wan Yanhai, blew the whistle, China's authorities jailed him for disclosing state secrets--until world outcry proved too embarrassing.

Wow. Though I can hardly be surprised this happens in a country who forces abortions and population (gender) control on its own people.

[Allan]

The author of this article
Claudia Rosett
will be on the Batchelor and Alexander show tonight.
(Just after 11pm ET)

[Allan]

Sorry, meant to ping you on the previous #10

[heleny]

A google search on AIDS and Henan (one of the provinces with poor villages reportedly running high rates of AIDS) returns infection rates up to 62% in some villages.

Apparently, blood plasma collectors paid remote villagers to sell their blood, which was thought to be "clean"; local officials received money, so they propagandized for the racket.

One way to collect only some parts of blood, such as the plasma, is to centrifuge the whole blood and return the unwanted parts back to the donor; this allows a donor to give blood more often, although it is riskier for the donor. Chinese blood collectors may have pooled the blood or simply reused needles and other equipment. Since they mostly collected plasma and not red blood cells, people could sell quite frequently (every week?) without getting tired.

Unfortunately, many of the poor folk did not know how HIV, hepatitis, or other blood-borne viruses are transmitted, so they did not know how they got their disease or even what disease they had. The Chicom government did not care and even tried to suppress information.

Beijing had a scare last year where poor farmers, desperate over the government indifference toward their province's AIDS situation, came to the capital and stuck innocent people with needles supposedly containing HIV-infected blood. After the crimes made headlines for a few days, the government blocked all mention of them.

[jerseygirl]

bump!