Ottawa Citizen: Chinese secrecy threatens world health (Photo)

Sharda Vaidyanath

The Ottawa Citizen

Friday, April 18, 2003

Letters to Editors:

Photo byáChuck Stoody, Canadian Press Sharda Vaidyanath says the SARS outbreak has shown the worldwide health risks that arise from the endemic official secrecy in China.

Re: Fear factor and Virus fight goes to ridiculous lengths, both April 12.

Beyond the fear and nuisance factor of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a real long-term danger lingers. The political and cultural practices in China that bred the SARS pandemic and unwittingly exported it to the rest of the world must be discussed.

Bureaucratic secrecy has been official Chinese policy for several centuries. Publication of negative news has always been interpreted as a threat to China's national security, and therefore the obsessively controlled state media shed no light on the real situation of anything in China, let alone a disease that threatens other countries.

Chinese officials have constantly engaged in denials, coverups and misrepresentations, with gag orders on doctors and senior officials who might be approached by outsiders for information. That blocks vital information from being provided to International disease-monitoring agencies, even when high-profile foreigners such as Dr. Carlo Urbani of the World Health Organization have died due to SARS.

When the only source of important information from China is rumours and hearsay, we have what the world at large is now experiencing: fatal consequences and the spread of the disease to more than a dozen countries.

SARS is only one of several diseases, including hepatitis A in Shanghai, on which China has stonewalled. The lessons from these examples are clear. We must transcend the nuisance factor and grapple with the long-term ramifications of a political and cultural entity that is not democratic.

Above all, understand that the world community will pay dearly for China's systemic problems when corporate greed and vested interests take precedence over instigating real change or political reform.

Sharda Vaidyanath,

Gloucester

http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/letters/story.asp?id=A1CF1595-848C-4B0A-BAF0-C645B2598634

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