95-year-old Chinese Aids whistleblower passes away in exile

Gao Yaojie, a famous doctor who spoke out about the Aids outbreak in rural China, has passed away at the age of 95.

Dr Gao died in New York from natural causes. She had been living in exile there since 2009, according to a friend who spoke with the BBC.

She found out that businesses selling blood caused HIV to spread in rural areas.

She was a leader in fighting against Aids in China and traveled around the country to help sick people, sometimes using her own money.

She was born in Shandong province in 1927. Her family had to run away to the central Henan province during World War II.

She was a doctor for women’s health and met her first Aids patient in Henan province in 1996.

A Chinese activist who was sent away from his country feels sad about his old life.

In the 1980s and 1990s, many people in rural areas like Henan would sell their blood. Farming communities didn’t have many job choices, so they often sold their blood to make money. The government sometimes supported this. However, because only a small number of people in rural China were found to have HIV, and most people didn’t know much about Aids, blood from HIV+ patients was also collected, which caused the disease to spread.

At the time, Chinese officials believed that HIV was spread through sex or from a mother to her baby during pregnancy. Gao had a sudden realization when she found out that one of her patients had a history of receiving a blood transfusion and didn’t fit into either category.

She is called “Grandma Gao” and she went to Henan villages to look at how many people have Aids. It is said that she visited over 100 villages affected by AIDS and met with over 1,000 families. She would often give food, clothes, and printed resources about AIDS to people, usually using her own money.

In the beginning, Henan officials hid the fact that people were selling their blood, but later on they closed down the businesses in the mid-1990s. However,Gao continued to talk about how HIV is spreading in the country.

“It is larger. ” It’s all across the country, in all places. I have personally seen everything. Selling blood is against the law. In the old days, it was open for everyone to see. “In 2010, she talked to the BBC and said it’s now underground. ”

DrGao said that 10 million people in China have HIV, which is a lot more than the 740,000 people the government says have it. But official disagreed about this.

Although she wasn’t the first Chinese doctor to talk about the AIDS epidemic, she was the one who made people in the country and around the world aware of the situation.

would clarify it with. Gao could not get the Henan government to notice AIDS spreading from blood stations. Instead, she told a New York Times reporter. Professor Nathan at Columbia University assisted her in moving to New York. The Henan blood-sales Aids epidemic was in the news and it became a big problem. This made the Chinese government take action.

This made more news outlets talk about Dr. Gao’s discoveries in the early 2000s. She got many awards from her own country and from other countries too.

At first, the Chinese government was easy on her. CCTV, China’s main TV station, praised her in 2003 for being a person who influenced China. They said she had a lot of knowledge and good thinking that helped people feel less afraid and prejudiced. They also said she had a motherly love and gave a lot of herself to help people who were vulnerable.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Dr. Gao is one of the bravest people she knows.

But the Henan authorities started to feel uneasy with her complaints about government officials. She moved away from China in 2009 because the government was watching her and putting more and more pressure on her.

She went to live in New York and stayed there until she passed away. Her husband Guo Mingjiu passed away in 2006. She has two daughters and a son who are still alive.

Even though people admire Dr. Gao for being a doctor, she has no relationship with her children.

Shiyu Lin wrote that Gao Yaojie’s oldest daughter said their mom helped others but made their family fall apart.

“MsLin remembered when Grandma Gao told her that she was a good doctor, but not a good mother. ”

Even though she was away from China for a long time, some Chinese people on the internet are sad about her death.

She was an important person. “But nowadays, young people may not know about that history,” said someone on Weibo.

“Our generation of people who work in news or read news know about her and remember her. ” Chinese journalist Li Weiao said on Weibo that the news reminded him of other Chinese doctors like Jiang Yanyong and Li Wenliang, who spoke out about the Sars outbreak and Covid pandemic.