Were our children poisoned?
Top society and culture news for March 24, 2017. Part of the daily The China Project news roundup "Not your daddy’s propaganda."
On March 9, 53 children from a kindergarten in Jilin Province were hospitalized after they showed symptoms of illness, including fever, weakness, and vomiting. One day later, municipal authorities conducted a preliminary investigation and concluded that the sickness was caused by food poisoning from ingesting coliform bacteria. On March 15, all the children were discharged from the hospital, but one boy was taken by his parents to the First Hospital of Jilin University (FHJU) for further examination: He tested positive for rat poison. As a result, the Jilin City government organized another group test for all the children at the kindergarten, and nine more tested positive for rat poison. As the news began to circulate on the internet, the National Health and Family Planning Commission sent a group of three experts to investigate. According to Sixth Tone, they overturned the results of the hospital’s tests.
Parents, however, were suspicious of the sudden twist in the case. In a 10-second video (in Chinese) circulated online, a group of furious parents gather, complaining about the overhauled result. The person who shot the footage remarks, “Look how intense the crowd is…I can’t believe that they told us the previous result was wrong!” On Chinese social media, internet users have been divided over the case. On this Weibo posting (in Chinese), one commenter says, “We should trust experts sent by the central government. They speak with authority.” Others question, “What are the chances that FHJU, the best hospital in Jilin Province, gave incorrect results on all 10 cases?”
- 900,000 new cases of TB a year / China Daily
- Why Albanian films are big in China: Cultural Revolution nostalgia / SCMP
- Inside China’s almost-totally-legal $400 million fishery in Africa / Wired
- Hot water in South China Sea causes mass coral bleaching / Sixth Tone
- China to plant green necklace of trees around Beijing to fight smog / NYT (paywall)
- A river of rubbish: The ugly secret threatening China’s most beautiful city – Guilin / The Guardian
