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China news tagged with: Gao Yaojie (25)

• Stigma Shadows Progress in China’s AIDS Battle – Katina Wong

  

  From Caijing.com.cn:

  China’s fight against AIDS has made progress but suffers from public stigma and a lack of transparency among local governments, a top United Nations health official said in Beijing.

  Peter Piot, director of the UNAIDS agency, spoke at a July 17 ceremony where he presented an award to Beijing’s vice minister of health, Dr. Wang Longde, for spearheading a government response to AIDS. He also honored Professor Zhang Beichuan of Qingdao University for his work in raising HIV awareness among homosexual men. Earlier, Piot had visited Henan Province, an area deeply affected by AIDS due to illegal blood collection and home to the famous activist Dr. Gao Yaojie . He met HIV-infected patients and their families, AIDS experts, and officials from the central and local governments. [Full Text]

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  • July 18, 2007 2:24 PM

• Video: An Interview with Chinese AIDS activist Dr. Gao Yaojie

  

  Youtube carried the following video of an interview with Gao Yaojie, a famous Chinese AIDS activist, who won the Vital Voices Global Partnership Leadership Award for this year.

  - See also “Video: Gao Yaojie, the AIDS Fighters” via CDT: video 1, video 2, video 3, video 4.

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  • May 8, 2007 5:36 PM

• Aids Activist ‘Harassed’ in China – Chris Xia

  

  From BBC News:

  A prominent critic of the Chinese government’s record fighting HIV/Aids is being harassed by the authorities weeks after receiving a major award.

  Dr Gao Yaojie exposed a 1990s blood transfusion scandal that infected thousands of people in Henan province.

  She was recently recognised for her work by a charity in New York, Vital Voices, sponsored by Hilary Clinton. In the run-up to the event, she was prevented from applying for a visa, and in effect put under house arrest.[Full Text]

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  • April 20, 2007 5:38 PM

• Gao Yaojie: Interview with RFA

  

  From RFA Unplugged:

  “I am very concerned that the authorities will find new ways to keep me down, when I return. I am particularly worried about my family. Both mine and my son’s e-mail accounts have been closed. I want to publish two books. One is a manuscript that I gave to a publisher in 2004, which has been dragging its feet ever since. Now the material is out of date, so I must update it and reorganize it. That book is called “AIDS Orphans”. Another book is called “10 years in AIDS prevention”. The editor who was supposed to publish that was fired because of it and took it away with him to Guangzhou. So neither book has been published.” “The government-run blood-banks are closed. But not only have the black market blood-banks not closed, they are on the increase again. 25 counties in Guizhou alone are engaged in blood-selling. Recently they discovered some people in Guangzhou who had been selling their blood for 10 years; from midnight to 6 a.m.” [Full Text]

  - See also “Meeting between Hillary Clinton and AIDS crusader Gao Yaojie makes the front page at Southern Metropolis Daily” from China Media Project.

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  • March 19, 2007 8:25 PM

• Group Honors Doctor Who Exposed China AIDS Scandal – Nora Boustany

  

  
  
  From The Washington Post:

  Last month, at the Chinese New Year, officials from China’s central Henan province showed up at the door of Gao Yaojie, an 80-year-old retired obstetrician, blogger and AIDS activist. Previously, provincial officials had come to the house only to harass Gao, who was under house arrest. But this time, on Feb. 17, they came bearing gifts — flowers, balloons and a huge vase.

  The provincial officials’ turnaround was a result of international pressure; Gao was told she would be permitted to travel to Washington to receive the Vital Voices Global Leadership Award, which was presented to her here last night.

  Gao, a diminutive woman with feet tiny from having been bound when she was a child, has been credited with saving a million lives, if not more, according to public health specialists here. In the mid-1990s, she single-handedly led a crusade that exposed a catastrophic blood plasma donor business that had triggered an HIV/AIDS epidemic in Henan province. [Full Text]

  A US based Chinese news website duowei.com published a lengthy interview with Gao Yaojie, entitled “I am a failed person.” See the video on Youtube (in Chinese.)

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  • March 15, 2007 12:08 PM

• Gao Yaojie is Not Sensationalizing the Problem – Yan Lieshan (China Business Herald)

  

  China analyst David Cowhig has provided the following translation of an article from the China Business Herald about Doctor Gao Yaojie and the AIDS epidemic in China. Below is a note from the translator followed by the translation:

  Translator’s note:

  Dr. Gao Yaojie will receive a Global Leadership Award from Vital Voices on March 14 at the Kennedy Center.

  Last night I ran across a March 6, 2007 newspaper article discussing Dr. Gao’s current campaign about exposing and stopping unsafe blood collection and transfusion practices. Dr. Gao is best known for exposing the HIV epidemic in Henan and other provinces and for helping AIDS orphans. Now she is very concerned about many recent cases of people getting HIV from blood transfusions in Henan Province.

  She has been collecting cases about these infections and their spread. She has linked 40 cases of HIV/AIDS to one hospital in central Henan and has been collecting information about a cluster of cases at two other Henan hospitals and reports of other cases around the province. Dr. Gao has been describing these cases on her blog, using pseudonyms for the AIDS patients. She finds that listing case after case after case will prove that she is not exaggerating that blood borne spread of HIV/AIDS remains a problem in Henan. It is for this work compiling and publicizing these cases on her blog that resulted in her recent soft arrest/home detention in Zengzhou, Henan.

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  • March 12, 2007 9:09 PM

• Freed China AIDS activist off to U.S. – Benjamin Kang Lim

  

  From Reuters via The China Post:

  A 79-year-old prominent Chinese AIDS activist is to fly to the United States as early as Sunday to receive a human rights award after she was freed from house arrest thanks to U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

  Gao Yaojie is to receive the Vital Voices Global Women’s Leadership Award for Human Rights in Washington in March for helping bring to light official complicity in the spread of AIDS in her home province Henan in central China, where thousands of poor farmers sold blood in the 1990s and have been infected. To prevent her from going and embarrassing China, police in Zhengzhou, provincial capital of Henan, placed Gao under house arrest on Feb. 1. The move sparked an international outcry. Henan authorities relented and freed her on Feb. 16, days after Clinton, a Democratic presidential-hopeful, wrote to Chinese President Hu Jintao and Vice Premier Wu Yi, urging them to intervene and let Gao leave for the United States.[Full Text]

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  • February 25, 2007 10:17 PM

• The Chinese AIDS Doctor (1 Letter) – Chu Maoming

  

  A Chinese official wrote the Washington Post a letter to berate the reports of Gao Yaojie’s house arrest:
  
  

  Re “China Covers Up AIDS Doctor’s Detention” and “China Relents, Allowing AIDS Doctor to Visit U.S.” (news articles, Feb. 16 and 17):

  Dr. Gao Yaojie has long worked for H.I.V./AIDS prevention, treatment and assistance in China. Her services and achievements have won full acknowledgment from the Chinese government and people.

  The allegation that Dr. Gao was “under house arrest” is totally irresponsible. As for Dr. Gao coming to the United States to accept the relevant award, the Chinese government fully respects her personal will.

  Chu Maoming
  
  Press Counselor and Spokesman
  
  Embassy of China
  
  [Full Text]

  - Related report China Covers Up Detention of AIDS Doctor from The New York Times

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  • February 24, 2007 8:02 PM

• Gao Yaojie Arrives in Beijing, Vice Minister of Health Pays Visit – Hu Jia (ËÉ°‰Ω≥)

  

  From Boxun, translated by CDT:

  Hu Jia (ËÉ°‰Ω≥), an AIDS activist, reported that Gao Yaojie arrived in Beijing yesterday (Feb. 22) afternoon. Hu and his wife Zeng Jinyan picked her up at the airport.

  Last night, Professor Gao met with Shu Haiyun, secretary of the Politics Department of the German Embassy. When Gao was confined at home, the German Embassy expressed their concern. At 8 pm last night, Wang Longde (王陇德) Vice Minister of Health, and Hao Yang (郝阳), head of Disease Control Section of the Ministry of Health, paid Professor Gao a visit in her hotel room, on behalf of Vice Premier Wu Yi. The three talked for 90 minutes with harmony and honesty. Wang said he is willing to obtain true information from the grassroots from Professor Gao.

  Professor Gao will go to apply for the visa at the US Embassy today at 3:30pm.

  -Click here for the original news (in Chinese)

  - Click here to listen the phone conversation between AIDS activist Hu Jia and Gao Yaojie on 20:02 Feb. 17, 2007, via Boxun.com. (in Chinese)

  (Photo: Gao with Wang Longde, Vice Minister of Health, and Hao Yang, head of Disease Control Section of the Ministry of Health)

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  • February 23, 2007 2:19 PM

• Henan Party Officials Payed Gao Yaojie a Spring Festival Visit – Henan Daily

  

  

  China analyst David Cowhig wrote:

  I found online the picture of the Henan Vice Governor visiting Dr. Gao on February 12th to convey the solicitude of the Party and Government on the occasion of the Spring Festival that appeared in the Henan Ribao. The link to the article is at here.

  An interesting expression on Dr. Gao’s face.

  Dr. Gao had a February 11 posting on her blog. Dr. Gao’s blog, which she still maintains, has become what Dr. Gao’s calls a “battleground” between her supporters and detractors. Dr. Gao in her blog entry of February 11 denounces a hacking saboteur of her blog and notes that one visitor left a message that people were being paid 50 RMB each to leave negative comments. Gao writes that the attacks began after she began describing many cases of people who got HIV through blood transfusions in order to show a serious problem of HIV transmission by blood transfusion continues in Henan Province.

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  • February 17, 2007 12:13 PM

• Detained AIDS Doctor Allowed to Visit U.S. Later, China Says – Jim Yardley

  

  From New York Times:

  China gave in to international pressure on Friday and agreed to release a prominent AIDS doctor from house arrest so she can attend an awards ceremony in Washington next month.

  “We’re just really excited about it,” said Wenchi Yu Perkins, an officer with Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nonprofit women’s advocacy group that will honor the doctor, Gao Yaojie, in March along with other women from around the world. [Full Text]

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  • February 17, 2007 11:03 AM

• China allows AIDS activist to visit U.S. – Devlin Barrett

  

  From AP, via Houston Chronicle:

  Chinese officials signaled Friday they will allow a prominent AIDS activist who had been confined to her home to visit the United States next month, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said.

  Gao Yaojie, 80, was confined to her home, worrying fellow activists who said the measure was aimed at keeping her from making the trip to the United States to accept an award from a non-profit group.

  Clinton had pressed Chinese officials to let Gao travel to accept the reward from Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nonprofit group supported by Clinton, a New York Democrat and presidential candidate.

  Clinton aides said the Chinese ambassador called the senator Friday to tell her Gao would be allowed to travel. [Full Text]

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  • February 16, 2007 5:23 PM

• China Covers Up Detention of AIDS Doctor – Jim Yardley

  

  From The New York Times:

  The photograph and article in Tuesday’s Henan Daily could have been headlined “Happy Holidays.” Three highranking Henan Province officials, beaming and clapping as if presenting a lottery check, were making an early Lunar New Year visit to the apartment of a renowned AIDS doctor, Gao Yaojie.

  They gave her flowers. Dr. Gao, 80, squinted toward the camera, surely understanding that pictures can lie. She was under house arrest to prevent her from getting a visa to accept an honor in Washington. Her detention attracted international attention, and the photo op was a sham, apparently intended to say, “Look, she’s fine and free as a bird.”

  On Thursday, Dr. Gao said in a telephone interview, a handful of police officers remained stationed outside her apartment building in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou. [Full Text]

  Read also CDT’s earlier post: China AIDS Activist Says Under House Arrest.

  » Read more
  • February 15, 2007 8:23 PM

• Video: Gao Yaojie, the AIDS Fighter (4/4) – YouTube

  

  Dr. Gao Yaojie, the 80-year-old veteran AIDS fighter and national hero, was recently barred by the local government from going to Beijing to get her US visa to receive an award from US senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

  In the last part of this video series, Gao’s outspokenness has irked some health officials, for instance by predicting a major epidemic in Shandong in 3-5 years due to still significant number of illegal, but not underground, blood-buying clinics. But at a Tianjin book fair in 2005, Gao was chilled by the lack of interest in her fourth book on AIDS, in a hall packed with book shoppers. “I feel it’s mainly ignorance,” she says. Still, she is passionate about giving lectures to college students.
  

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  • February 15, 2007 8:06 AM

• China AIDS Activist Says Under House Arrest – Reuters

  

  From Reuters:
  
  

  An aged AIDS activist in central China said she remained under house arrest on Thursday despite abandoning plans to travel to the United States to collect a prize, but she vowed to keep exposing the spread of the disease.

  Gao Yaojie helped bring to light the spread of AIDS in her home province Henan, where during the 1990s commercial blood stations often controlled by officials spread the HIV virus among poor farmers eager to sell their blood…

  A retired doctor in her eighties, she was due to travel to Washington in March to be honoured at the Vital Voices Global Partnership annual awards. But she told Reuters that from early February police blocked her from travelling to Beijing to obtain a visa.[Full Text]

  (Photo of Dr. Gao and her AIDS orphans)

  » Read more
  • February 15, 2007 12:03 AM

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