Can Public Bathhouses Ban HIV/AIDS Carriers?

来源 :Beijing Review | 被引量 : 0次 | 上传用户:hlly369
下载到本地 , 更方便阅读
声明 : 本文档内容版权归属内容提供方 , 如果您对本文有版权争议 , 可与客服联系进行内容授权或下架
论文部分内容阅读
  Recently, a draft regulation on the public bathing industry released by the Ministry of Commerce, which forbids people with HIV/AIDS to enter public bathhouses, has caused a stir.
  The draft orders public bathhouses to display signs prohibiting “people with venereal diseases, AIDS and infectious skin diseases” to enter. It also stipulates that any public bathhouse that violates the regulation would be warned or fined by as much as 30,000 yuan ($4,911).
  A survey conducted by Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, showed that more than 70 percent of respondents considered the ban necessary to ensure public health, with 20 percent opposed to the draft, claiming that it is unfair and might deepen social discrimination against HIV/AIDS carriers and add to public fear over the virus. The following are excerpts of opinions:
   Supporter
  Qiao Zhifeng (iqilu.com): Discrimination against and misconception of HIV/AIDS carriers and the disease itself is still widely evident across Chinese society. However, I believe that a regulation to forbid people with HIV/AIDS from entering public bathhouses protects health, instead of discriminating against such carriers.
  To bathe with HIV/AIDS carriers is risky to some extent. Indeed, for many years, no epidemiological investigation shows that anyone has been infected by bathing in public bathhouses. However, this does not mean that the possibility does not exist and that such an incident would never occur. Intact skin will protect a person from the HIV virus, but what if someone happens to carry a small wound and meets with a HIV/AIDS carrier in some bathhouse? The odds of people catching HIV in a bathhouse are low, though they still exist. There are thus many reasons to take preventive measures against HIV/AIDS infection in bathhouses and similar venues.
  At the same time, bathhouse operators doubt the feasibility of the ban. While it’s possible for them to spot some kinds of dermatoses, it’s impossible to find out whether certain customers carry venereal diseases or even HIV/ AIDS. The regulation could only be followed-up via self-discipline. Bathhouse operators are not entitled to supervise patients or ask them for“health certificates.”
  But such a law is necessary. First, the law reminds bathhouses to guard against certain infectious diseases, and second, it serves as a warning to patients. It’s illegal to deliberately infect others with venereal diseases. The new ban offers a kind of restriction to patient behavior.   Finally, I’d like to tell some activists that I understand their efforts to establish social equality and remove discrimination against HIV/AIDS carriers, but have they ever thought that excessive sensitivity implies a lack of confidence and a different type of discrimination against such patients? To face reality and show more tolerance will afford a better life to everyone.
   Opponents
  Zhao Jicheng (sohu.com): Medical evidence reveals that HIV is only transmitted through unprotected sex, contaminated blood transfusions and from mother to child during pregnancy. People will not get infected through ordinary daily contact with such patients. Thus, HIV/AIDS carriers should not be discriminated against so severely. Normal contact with these patients in bathhouses will not lead to HIV infection.
  HIV/AIDS-related legislation should be based on scientific and specific evidence, so as to better protect patients’ dignity and equal right as well as ensure public hygiene and safety.


  It’s a pity that most of those who support the ban show groundless discrimination and prejudice. I can’t think of any reason to block HIV/AIDS patients from public bathhouses. If ordinary people reject these patients because of personal discomfort or fear, it is their own psychological problem. Laws are not supposed to support such baseless discomfort or fear.
  I hope that medical experts would have the opportunity to become involved in relevant legislation, so that the problem of whether HIV/AIDS patients should be allowed into bathhouses could be decided in accordance with scientific evidence, rather than personal emotions. The ban on HIV/AIDS patient entry into bathhouses will not only hurt this weak social group, but the whole of society.
  Wu Hao (Beijing Morning Post): To post signs demanding those with venereal diseases and contagious dermatoses not to enter public bathhouses is a way to protect other users’safety and health. Signs of such warnings have been placed at public pools, bathhouses and spas for many years.
  Indeed, from a legal perspective, if a venereal disease carrier deliberately transmits his or her disease to others, it’s a problem. However, no epidemiological investigation has shown that people will get infected with HIV by bathing in public bathhouses. It’s difficult for this virus to survive in such water due to its temperature. HIV is active in people’s blood and will soon die after leaving the body. Besides, intact skin is a strong firewall against this virus.   HIV can also be found in saliva and tears, but the odds of catching HIV through these is small. The virus enters another person’s body through wounds or blood, so it’s impossible for it to be transmitted through coughing or sneezing. The rule to bar HIV patients from entering public bathhouses is excessive.
  Wang Junrong (people.com.cn): To post signs is one thing while putting the regulation into practice is another. If the regulation can’t be well implemented, signs are useless. Bathhouses are not in the position to ask their customers whether they are HIV/AIDS positive or not, while carriers would probably not tell the bathhouse they are on their own.
  In China, HIV/AIDS carriers are still very sensitive to public opinion, as discrimination remains widespread. The country has already made unremitting efforts to remove discrimination against HIV/AIDS carriers. Chinese law protects the right of such patients as well as their spouses and children in going to school, seeking jobs, visiting the hospital, and participating in social activities. No organization or individual should discriminate against such patients and their families. Moreover, certain activists and volunteers invite HIV/AIDS patients to dinner and hug them in public.
  UNAIDS and China’s Ministry of Health issued an investigation report on discrimination faced by the country’s HIV/AIDS carriers, which revealed that 41.7 percent of interviewees were once discriminated against due to their infection. Two thirds of interviewees said that their families have been discriminated against because of them. With the knowledge that someone is HIV/AIDS positive, a quarter of medical workers, as well as over one third of government officials and teachers, develop discriminatory attitudes toward such carriers. Besides, more than 12 percent of interviewees said that, since they were tested HIV-positive, they were refused entry to hospitals at least once. All these facts show that in China, such patients are already living in a very negative environment, to which a sign forbidding them from entering bathhouses adds even more insult. It’s really a disappointing regulation.
  The feasibility of such a regulation is questionable. The ban would only exacerbate people’s misunderstanding, discrimination and fear of HIV/AIDS while failing to help reduce transmission.
其他文献
期刊
思想政治工作是企业思想战线的重要职责,是企业经济工作和其他工作的生命线,对各项工作起到“服务”、“保证”和“引导”的作用.如今随着国有企业改革,各种热点、难点、疑点
孩子十一、二岁进入青春发育期,孩子生理、心理和社会性发展方面都出现显著的变化,其主要特点是身心发展迅速而又不平衡,是经历复杂发展,又充满矛盾的时期.青春期的逆反是儿
Questionable cartoons worry young Chinese parents ‘My son watches Black Cat Detective,a cartoon I loved when I was a kid,“said Liu Yang,mother of a six-yearol
期刊
知名法国时尚品牌Cache Cache在 CHIC2014现场举办了品牌2014年的展招会,宣布品牌将于今年在中国店铺数量达到1000家的消息,同时也将Cache Cache品牌的多样性生动地展现给业内
文化是一个民族的精神和灵魂,是国家发展和民族振兴的强大力量.笔者联系杭州交通质监实际,开展了“以主题实践活动为载体,推进交通质监廉政文化建设”的专题调研,在回顾和总
2010年12月30日至31日,全国人力资源和社会保障工作会议在北京召开。会议深入贯彻党的十七大和十七届五中全会精神,落实中央经济工作会议和全国组织部长会议部署,总结“十一
CHIC2014上,中部大观国际商贸中心(以下简称“中部大观”)作为中部唯一受邀参展市场,代言中部,首次登上世界舞台,并承办2014中部服装流通升级圆桌论坛,与各方大佬论道中部服
本文从科学、技术的概念入手,探讨了由于科技风险造成的科技应用的负面效应,进而分析了科技风险的起因及其不可避免性,提出了加强科技伦理建设的重要性与紧迫性.
教学效果是所有教学的最终目的,课堂上幼儿注意不集中,是导致幼儿厌学的主要原因,以《纲要》为背景,遵循数学自身的特点,要提高幼儿教学活动的效果,必须提高幼儿课堂注意力.