China's AIDS whistleblower Gao Yaojie vows to continue helping sufferers

BEIJING (AFP) - With her heavy glasses and hobble 77-year-old Gao Yaojie looks
an unlikely activist. But it is the memory of a child clutching its dead mother
and countless other tragedies played out across her Henan province that drove
her to become China's most outspoken AIDS campaigner.

"I walked into a village with a reporter. We heard loud wailing coming from one
of the homes. When we arrived at the house, I saw a child clutching at the
mother's leg. The mother had hung herself because she had AIDS and couldn't
treat herself," she said recently.

"Thinking about that ... now still makes me want to cry." That incident and
other similar encounters in Gao's home province of Henan in central China
convinced her to devote the past eight years of her life to exposing the plight
of poor farmers who contracted HIV/AIDS from selling blood in unsanitary
government-approved collection schemes.

Gao was among some of the first physicians to hear about "the mysterious
disease" that was killing villagers in the mid-1990s. Farmers had been selling
blood since the mid-1980s and a decade later many had begun to die. Local
hospitals turned them away, not knowing what the disease was.

Experts estimate at least one million farmers in Henan alone contracted HIV/AIDS
in the blood trade, and while several other provinces have similar outbreaks,
the Chinese government does not know or has not revealed the extent of the
problem.

Despite being chased away by local officials hoping to cover up the outbreak,
Gao repeatedly went back to villages, bringing food, clothes and money for the
families.

Since 1996, Gao has spent 80,000 yuan (9,638 US dollars) of her own money to
help 164 children orphaned by AIDS, and visited more than 100 villages.

She alone has seen more than 1,000 AIDS patients. Her phone is constantly
tapped, and she has been accused by local officials of disclosing her country's
secrets to its overseas enemies -- foreign journalists.

And Henan officials recently followed her all the way to Beijing to try to scare
her into not attending a speech by former US president Bill Clinton (news - web
sites) during an AIDS conference. None of that has stopped Gao.

"I believe in life, people should do all they can to help others," Gao said. "I
will do this until the day I die."

Gao is of the dwindling generation of people who became an adult before the
Communist Party took over in 1949. Because of her parents' background as
landlords, the former gynecologist was demoted and forced to clean hospital
bathrooms for eight years during the Cultural Revolution.

"I went through a lot of hardship. That's why I help others. I feel sorry for
them," Gao said. Her efforts helped to eventually bring the AIDS scandal to the
public.

Outside of China, Gao is perhaps the mainland's best known AIDS activist, having
won a series of prestigious awards, including the Jonathan Mann Award.

But it was only last month that she won the first ever award in China, a
"Touching China" award given by the China Central Television station to 10
people each year.

Partly as a result of her campaigning, the government now is beginning to give
free AIDS drugs to some of the farmers affected by the blood-sale schemes, and
even Vice Premier Wu Yi has taken time to meet with her.

Despite these initial victories, Gao decries the fact Henan officials involved
in the unsafe blood trade have yet to be punished, but rather have been
promoted.

Other provincial governments that collected blood haven't been exposed and
officials continue to hamper efforts by the media and volunteers, Gao said.

"AIDS is not just a Henan problem. So many years this has been going on. It's so
serious," Gao said recently. "But in many places AIDS outbreaks still haven't
been reported. These places are still sealed up."

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