Re: government, markets, and material well-being

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

That is what you get with a market economy.
If blood is not bought and sold like a commodity, aids in China would be
uncontrol.  Also, if the Chinese government were to free itself from US
neo-liberals, the Chinese people would be better off.

Henry  C.K. Liu

Alan G Isaac wrote:

> Just to be clear, this post is not meant to pose any
> unambiguous judgment on the subject.  Just the opposite.
> Alan Isaac
>
> August 25, 2002
> AIDS Scourge in Rural China Leaves Villages of Orphans
> *By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL*
>
> DONGHU, China---Neighbors remember when young Dong Yangnan
> was a "xiao pangzi," or little fatty, the kind of husky,
> moon-cheeked child that Chinese grandmothers adore. Today,
> at 12, he is orphaned, stick thin and dressed in tattered
> clothes.
>
> Last summer, his mother died of AIDS. His father, coughing
> and feverish, succumbed to the disease in May. Yangnan lives
> with an elderly grandfather, surviving on rice gruel and
> steamed buns.
>
> "Before, I had a happy life, and my parents took good care
> of me," he said listlessly, his big eyes staring away to a
> lost past. "Now I have to look after myself and often have
> no money."
>
> AIDS is creating an explosion of destitute orphans here in
> China's rural heartland and is driving large numbers of
> families into such dire poverty that they can no longer
> afford to feed or clothe, much less educate, their children.
>
> At the start of last year, there were no orphans in this
> village in southern Henan Province. Today, because of AIDS,
> there are nearly 20, and hundreds more are likely to face a
> similar fate within a year or two. Residents estimate that
> 200 of the village's 600 families have one parent dead and
> the other ill, often too frail to work or even rise from
> bed. They receive little government help.
>
> According to unpublished statistics from the United Nations
> Development Program, the number of families living below the
> official poverty line in Xincai, the county that includes
> Donghu, skyrocketed last year, to 270,000 from 40,000.
> Breadwinners fell ill, and families spent whatever they
> could scrape together for food and care.
>
> Experts say the blow dealt by AIDS to villages like Donghu
> has been sharper and crueler than anywhere else in the world
> because of the unusual and efficient way the disease spread
> here.
>
> Nearly the entire adult population of some villages was
> infected almost simultaneously in the 1990's as poor farmers
> flocked en masse to blood collection stations whose
> unsterile practices introduced hefty doses of H.I.V., the
> virus that causes AIDS, directly into their veins. Now, the
> victims---including many married couples---are falling ill
> and dying almost in unison.
>
> In other countries suffering epidemics, grandparents or
> aunts and uncles have helped the sick or taken in children.
> But here those relatives are often themselves overwhelmed by
> AIDS. Also, because China's family planning policies have
> limited families to one or two children, there is rarely an
> older sibling to serve as a surrogate parent.
>
> Ren Genqing, 16, dropped out of school three years ago
> because the money that would have gone for his school fees
> was needed to buy medicine for his parents.  His father died
> of AIDS in 2000, his mother in 2001. One uncle has died of
> AIDS, and another is sick. He alone is responsible for his
> 12-year-old brother.
>
> "I'm growing up, but my brother is still young," he said, a
> slightly cocky teenager, old before his time. "Before, the
> children here used to play soccer and other games, but you
> rarely see that these days. Lots of people are dying, and
> nobody's in the mood for that sort of thing."
>
> Some Chinese experts estimate that selling blood was common
> in dozens of Henan Province's counties before it was banned
> in the mid-90's, leaving at least a million people infected
> with H.I.V. In some places, selling blood served as a source
> of emergency income---fast cash to fix a roof or pay off a
> debt---but in others, like Donghu, most adults sold blood at
> least occasionally, and many sold it every week.
>
> Like many of the most severely affected villages, Donghu was
> near a blood collection station, one with government ties.
> Commercials on local television assured villagers that
> selling their blood was safe.
>
> Villagers here estimate that more than half of adults in
> Donghu were infected with H.I.V. in the early 1990's. A
> decade later, the death rate is gathering steam, with
> several people dying each week. The effects are largely
> hidden since local officials monitor access to the village
> and have warned residents not to speak with reporters.
>
> "The situation is worsening very rapidly because, once a
> spouse dies, the burden on the remaining one escalates and,
> of course, they are all infected too," one villager said.
>
> Extreme poverty has quickly and predictably followed, as
> able-bodied adults can no longer work and families sell
> their possessions to pay for basic needs. They borrow to buy
> medicine for suffering loved ones, but the simple remedies
> they can afford are ineffective against AIDS.
>
> Compounding the financial woes, grain, fruit and vegetables
> grown in these villages are almost impossible to sell in
> nearby cities, whose residents are afraid of contagion.
>
> "It really brings you to tears," said a medical worker who
> has visited villages in the province. "You see these pretty
> decent houses, built with the money from selling blood, but
> inside there is nothing. They've sold the farm tools, the
> animals, even the furniture. People who are dying are lying
> on the floor."
>
> For families like Ren Dahua's, it has been a vicious cycle:
> poverty begat AIDS, but AIDS has begotten previously
> unimaginable poverty.
>
> Mr. Ren started selling blood to patch his mud and brick
> hut, to keep his children dry when it rained. He also used
> the money to repay debts incurred from the purchase of an
> ox, fertilizer and wheat seed.
>
> When the blood stations opened in 1992, he and his wife
> rushed to sell their blood, for about $5 a bag. He regarded
> it as an opportunity and sold blood more than 30 times.
>
> When two more blood stations opened nearby---one affiliated
> with the local Red Cross and another run out of a hospital
> less than 100 yards from his front door---he sometimes
> visited daily.
>
> At the time, blood from several farmers was pooled and
> centrifuged to skim off the plasma, which the blood stations
> sold to companies to make medicines. The remaining red cells
> were pooled and transfused back into the sellers, providing
> a gruesomely efficient method for transmitting blood-borne
> diseases, including hepatitis and AIDS.
>
> By 1993, both Mr. Ren and his wife, Diao Yuhuan, were
> disqualified from selling blood because they had obvious
> symptoms of hepatitis C: jaundice, swollen waists and almost
> constant nausea. They did not know that they had also
> contracted H.I.V., which often takes years to show symptoms.
>
> Last year, Ms. Diao fell ill with tuberculosis, an infection
> that is often severe in people who have H.I.V. Selling his
> possessions, Mr. Ren scraped together 3,500 yuan, which
> covered a brief---but useless---hospital stay in Beijing.
> His wife died at home in January.
>
> "Because I spent so much money when my wife was ill, my
> children cannot go to school," said Mr. Ren, who also has
> H.I.V. "My son passed the high school entrance exam, but
> there's no money for him to go."
>
> In some families, like that of Wei Zhanjun, two generations
> of adults are dead or dying, leaving a single child carrying
> an unimaginable burden. Mr. Wei, whose wife died of AIDS in
> 2000, is so short of breath he can barely walk. His body is
> covered with painful sores. His parents, in their 50's, are
> bedridden with similar symptoms. Only his 8-year-old son,
> Wei Zhicheng, is healthy.
>
> "He is a good boy, but ever since my wife fell ill, there
> has been no money in this home and not enough food," he
> wrote in a letter describing his plight.  "Now, nobody farms
> our family's land, and we have heavy debts that we cannot
> repay." Money donated by neighbors to pay his son's school
> fees was quickly diverted to buy painkillers.
>
> There is really nowhere most families can turn for help.
> Most people die in horrible pain with little care. Their
> children leave school and go hungry.  Although a few
> villages have been given simple medicine and a bit of
> financial aid, some by private groups and some by the
> government, overwhelmed health officials have been slow to
> react.
>
> In some villages, dozens of children have dropped out of
> school because their families can no longer afford the fees,
> and proposals to offer such children discounts have proved
> ineffective. Some children from homes where a family member
> has H.I.V. say they have been barred from school. Others say
> the discounts are often so small, about 20 percent, that
> school remains unaffordable.
>
> Wang Beibei, 10, a star pupil from Suixian, a county in
> northern Henan, was expelled from third grade last year
> after school officials discovered that her father had died
> of AIDS.
>
> "They were afraid to let me in, and my friends stopped
> playing with me," she said by phone, from the home of a
> sympathetic neighbor. About a third of the families in her
> village had sold blood---fewer than in Donghu---in large
> part because the village was farther from blood stations.
>
> In June, Beibei's mother died of AIDS. School is out of the
> question. There is no one to work the family's land, and she
> and her brother struggle just to look out for each other.
> "My brother cooks for me, and we eat noodles," she said.
> "We have no money for eggs or meat."
>
> In Donghu, the school still admits such children if they can
> pay but offers no significant tuition breaks.
>
> Likewise, though government plans have called for families
> unable to farm because of AIDS to be exempt from grain
> taxes, families here and elsewhere say they are still
> required to pay in full.
>
> "The government doesn't do anything for me, and likewise it
> didn't do anything for my family," said Gao Li, 14, an
> orphan from Donghu, with cropped hair and a quiet,
> matter-of-fact voice.
>
> "I'm responsible for my brother, who is 10," she said.
> "Nobody among my relatives can help. My dad had brothers but
> one is dead, and the others are sick, too. My biggest
> difficulty is, I have no future."
>
> Indeed with so much death and so little reason to hope, many
> poor farmers with AIDS have shifted their focus from
> securing treatment for themselves to ensuring a future for
> their children.
>
> Since late last year, Xie Yan, who is in her late 30's and
> is H.I.V. positive, has had an obsession: She wants to find
> someone to adopt her 4-year-old son, who is not infected, as
> well as someone to support her two daughters, 13 and 9.  Her
> husband died of AIDS last year, and last winter she watched
> her best friend bleed to death on a hospital's doorstep
> while the friend's 4-year-old watched in terror.
>
> "I try not to think about myself since I know I won't be
> cured," she said. "But at night I can't sleep---I have
> nightmares and wild thoughts---worrying about what will
> happen to the kids."
>
> Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | Permissions |
> Privacy Policy