Gao Yaojie, the first person in China to speak out against the HIV epidemic, passed away in New York City on December 10, 2023, at the age of 95. Zhao Lanjian, a former Chinese media personality, commented that Gao Yaojie single-handedly promoted China’s social development and is a hero of the Chinese people.
Gao Yaojie was silenced and harassed
Gynecologist Gao Yaojie was silenced, blocked, and suppressed by the Beijing authorities for exposing the illegal sale of blood at blood stations backed by the local government of Henan, which led to the widespread HIV/AIDS epidemic.
In 1996, when Gao Yaojie was called for consultation after she encountered an AIDS patient. She discovered that the patient had been infected with HIV due to a contaminated blood transfusion. Consequently, she began to visit villages in Henan Province to investigate the issue for herself and, at the same time, raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and buy medicines and essential supplies to treat the patients, all at her own expense.
She urgently tried to stop the spread of AIDS among the poor while calling on Henan authorities to close blood stations, treat infected villagers, and hold officials accountable. She believed that the AIDS epidemic was a human catastrophe and that the AIDS crisis in Henan was on the same scale as a terrorist attack and world wars.
Severe state surveillance and house arrest
For exposing the AIDS epidemic, Gao Yaojie came under close state surveillance and was put under house arrest, and also faced pressure from the police and government officials. She said that this harassment was much worse than the imprisonment and beatings she endured during the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution in the late 1950s.
Following the continuing harassment and house arrest, Gao Yaojie fled to the United States in 2009 carrying first-hand information on the HIV cases. Frail and sickly during that time, she wrote eight books, among which are Memories and Random Thoughts of Gao Yaojie, The Soul of Gao Yaojie, Truth in Images: Reality of the AIDS Epidemic in China, Blood Disaster: Ten Thousand Letters, and China’s AIDS Disaster detailing her research on the AIDS epidemic in China.
Exposed a deep cover-up
In March 2010, Gao Yaojie was hired as a visiting scholar at Columbia University in the United States. In 2011, the 84-year-old Gao Yaojie published a book entitled Uncovering the True Face of China’s AIDS Epidemic, exposing the Chinese Communist authorities (CCP)’ cover-up of the truth surrounding the AIDS epidemic and its extensive corruption in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention.
Zhou Fengsuo, executive director of Human Rights in China, who first tweeted the news of Gao Yaojie’s death, told Radio Free Asia: “Dr. Gao Yaojie was persecuted by the CCP for telling the truth and speaking out for the victims, and was forced into exile in her 80s. This incident also reminds me of another very famous doctor, Dr. Jiang Yanyong (a Chinese physician who publicized a cover-up of the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic in mainland China).
Their persecution is a systemic problem, reflecting the nature of the Chinese Communist regime — it does not tolerate any truth, and it will continue to create all kinds of manufactured disasters. These whistleblowers are indeed intensely respectable and conscientious people”.
Gao Yu, a well-known journalist in Beijing, said in an interview with Radio Free Asia that Yang Jisheng and Gao Yaojie were the chroniclers of the “Great Chinese Famine” and the “Henan Blood Disaster” after the CCP came to power. “There are two very great writers in China; one is Yang Jisheng, who wrote about the national catastrophe of tens of millions of people starving to death, and the other one is Dr. Gao Yaojie, who exposed the blood disaster in Henan, confronting the crimes of the CCP in Chinese history; leaving a history of blood and tears.”
Raised people’s awareness
One Weibo user wrote: “This is an amazing person, but unfortunately, she did not die at home in China for political reasons.”
Some netizens compared Gao Yaojie to the coronavirus whistleblower Li Wenliang (a Chinese ophthalmologist) and expressed regret that the CCP official media was widely silent on his death. Another netizen wrote that Dr. Gao Yaojie should have been commended.
Zhao Lanjian praised Gao Yaojie for opening an era of people’s awareness
Revealed the tragic consequences of China’s dark management
Zhao Lanjian, a former Chinese media personality who was suppressed in mainland China (for his advocacy of a woman found chained by the neck to the wall of a hut in freezing weather) and now lives in exile in the United States, praised Gao Yaojie for opening up an era of people’s wisdom and awareness.
In an interview with Look at China, he said that before Gao Yaojie exposed the blood disaster in Henan, the people of China had the misconception that AIDS was a “disease of the wealthy” and that it resulted from their corrupt lifestyle. It was Gao Yaojie who let the world know that AIDS in China was an “inevitable way of life.”
Zhao Lanjian believes that two social backgrounds determine this inevitable way of life.
The first is the Chinese Communist authorities’ dark management, which uses a covert and concealed management method for AIDS statistics, the causes of AIDS, and the state of the community, which is the same as the three-year dark management method of the coronavirus epidemic. Regional leaders are filled with a sense of fear about the social reality of infectious diseases that corresponds to the constant concealment and cover-up of death data from catastrophic blunders.
Uncovered medical mismanagement
The number of fatalities by negligence was directly linked to the promotion of corrupt local officials, resulting in a vast number of disastrous casualties, the specific number of deaths, and the history of the incidents being concealed. There are many disasters in China, most which are classified and kept secret for decades.
Gao Yaojie’s intervention directly exposed the chaos in Chinese officialdom and let the world know that AIDS in Henan was a disaster of the century caused by the government’s medical mismanagement and blood trafficking. Gao Yaojie raised the people’s conscientiousness at the social level.
Second, Gao Yaojie started a revolution in citizen cognition on the causes of AIDS, the transmission of AIDS, and the survival of AIDS patients, as well as the health improvements and treatment of AIDS patients. This public awareness campaign and education about AIDS were inseparable from Gao Yaojie’s fearless efforts. Before Gao Yaojie revealed the truth about AIDS in Henan, China, was an AIDS-phobic society. People did not have the proper access to the understanding of HIV/AIDS conditions.
Galvanized the attention of media outlets
With Gao Yaojie at the core, the attention and intervention of hundreds of news media brought this hidden issue to the surface. The era when Gao Yaojie exposed Henan’s AIDS was also a period of idealism in China’s news media, and a large number of metropolitan newspapers, led by the Southern Press, focused intensely on Henan’s AIDS epidemic. It can also be said that Gao Yaojie set off the critical nationwide AIDS action. She has not only saved people living with HIV/AIDS, but also established a warning system for the entire Chinese society to prevent more people from being infected with HIV.
A noble warrior and fearless truth-teller
Dr. Gao Yaojie’s social significance is unprecedented. Her courage should be remembered. She has single-handedly promoted the development of Chinese society and cracked down on China’s corrupt medical management system. She was a fierce enemy of the Chinese Communist Party and a hero of the Chinese people. “Like a moth to the flame,” she came to reveal the truth and promote social reform. Dr. Gao Yaojie is indeed a role model.
Translated by Chua BC
