There are fears for the safety of a woman campaigning about China’s defective vaccines, with activists saying she has been missing for more than 40 days. Authorities have been clamping down on families demanding redress over hundreds of thousands of doses issued by the government.
Following revelations in July that a state-sponsored vaccine program had been using faulty serum, Tan Hua (譚華), 38 had been organizing parents calling for compensation and changes to how health authorities manage vaccines.
Changsheng Biotechnology Co Ltd (長生生物), based in China’s northern province of Jilin, was found to have sold 250,000 defective vaccines. It also fabricated inspections dating back to 2014.
Another major vaccine maker, the state-owned Wuhan Institute of Biological Products Co Ltd (武漢生物製品研究所), was also producing faulty inoculations for infants.
Tan, who claims she was the victim of a defective rabies vaccine in 2014 and has been protesting for years, was among a group of at least nine other protesters who were detained after attempting to protest in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in early September.
“Some 10 or 20 men in plain clothes surrounded us and caught Tan Hua,” said He Fangmei (何芳美), another campaigner, who was there. “I was trying to make calls to other activists for help.”
He, who said her daughter became partially paralyzed after receiving one of the substandard vaccines discovered this year, was sent back to her home.
Unlike the others who were released or whose family has received notice of their detention, there has been no news of Tan since she was taken away on Sept. 3. She reportedly has epilepsy and other health problems and had been seeking disability compensation in Beijing.
Authorities have tried to respond swiftly to the latest vaccine scandal, firing senior officials in the Chinese Food and Drug Administration and detaining the chairwoman of Changsheng, as well as more than a dozen other employees.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said the government would “investigate to the end” and “effectively respond to the concerns of the people.”
Yet parents who have become vocal, calling for a vaccine law or more information about vaccine safety, have come under pressure.
“That the [Chinese Communist] party would rather lock up a victim of a very scandal its trying to fix shows it still doesn’t know how to protect social-economic rights,” said Frances Eve, a campaigner with the advocacy group Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
A WeChat group of about 300 parents, advocates and vaccine victims, used to mobilize protest, has been censored, He said.
He and others have halted their activities since the detentions.
“Our group of activists is like a plate of scattered sand. Some have been beaten. Some have been detained. Some are terrified. I will of course keep fighting for my daughter, but to be honest, I have no idea what to do,” she said.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
RSS