In Rural China, a Steep Price of Poverty: Dying of AIDS. “Small

towns … scattered (throughout) central China are

experiencing an unreported, unrecognized AIDS epidemic. A

few covert studies suggest some of the towns have some of

the highest localized rates of H.I.V. infection in the world;

some say 20 percent.

The problem is that for many years large numbers of poor

farmers have illegally sold their blood to people known as

blood heads, whose unsterile collection methods have left

many infected with the virus that causes AIDS. The blood

donors get the virus not only because blood heads reuse

contaminated needles but also because donated blood is

often pooled and, after the desired elements are removed,

the remainder divided and returned to donors.” Hospitals don’t take these patients; their families turn them out; doctors trying to treat them are sometimes run out of town. While China acknowledges drug-related AIDS infections in its major cities, it denies the existence of this more pervasive and insidious epidemic and forbids media coverage of the issue. No government assistance for treatment or prevention efforts is forthcoming. Premarital blood testing still does not include HIV titers. Most patients found to be HIV-positive when tested during hospitalization are never told of the results. [Are the autocrats practicing genocide against the rural Chinese peasantry?] New York Times