Tuesday, December 05, 2006

law - first conviction on selling aids-blood

A Shanghai court has convicted a business women to six month of imprisonment for selling blood for cash, AP and the BBC said. The blood business has costs ten thousands of lives and has in Henan province wiped out a whole generation in some villages.
While China has banned the practice in 2003 the business is so lucrative that there is still a vibrant underground trade, says people who are active in give aid to the Aids-villages. Even giving aid is still troublesome, as many of the local officials have made money in the blood trade and are not always willing to accept help.
The scare of a - justified - criminal procedure would actually jeopardize efforts to give assistance so those villages, some say.

Update: More aids-related news. Nineteen Aids-patients got a compensation of 20 million Rmb (US$ 2.5 million) of a hospital in northern Heilongjiang for causing the disease. The terrible mistake was only made in 2004. Three hospital employees were convicted to between two and ten years in jail.
According to Voice of America, Li Dan, who runs the China Orchid Project to help AIDS orphans, said, "One can now use legal channels to protect rights. This is an improvement. Some local governments are now thinking about how to resolve this problem."

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