Shuping Wang

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In this Chinese name, the family name is Wang (王).

Shuping Wang
王淑平
Born
Zou Shuping (鄒淑平)

(1959-10-20)20 October 1959
Fugou County, Henan, China
Died21 September 2019(2019-09-21) (aged 59)
Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.
Other namesSunshine Christensen
CitizenshipChina and later United States
EducationHenan Medical College
Occupation(s)Physician, medical researcher
Known forExposing the spread of HIV and hepatitis C among blood sellers in Henan in the 1990s
Spouse(s)Geng Honghai, Gary Christensen
Children3

Shuping Wang (

whistleblower. She exposed the poor practices that led to the spread of hepatitis C and HIV in central China
in the 1990s, potentially saving tens of thousands of lives. In 2001, following harassment by Chinese officials, she moved to the United States, where she worked until her death.

Early life

Wang was born Zou Shuping on 20 October 1959, in

Communist Party, and adopted his surname, Wang. She was then allowed to continue her education.[1][2]

Career

Wang graduated from

Ministry of Health with her findings, which led to a 1993 regulation to require all plasma donors to be screened for hepatitis C.[2] She was removed from her position at the collection center, but took it upon herself to evaluate other facilities elsewhere, creating her own testing site and taking her own samples from the population, as well as evaluating collection centers and identifying further points of cross-contamination. She determined that the hepatitis C antibody was present in as high as 84.3% of the population in the region at the height of the epidemic.[2]

Shuping Wang (center), with public health colleagues visits rural AIDS village in Henan.

Around this time,

obstetrician-gynecologist from Henan who would become a major AIDS activist in China; Wang evaluated the blood samples, while Yaojie was the spokesperson to report on these.[2][4]

Wang was targeted for her

US citizen and worked as medical researcher both in Milwaukee and at the University of Utah until her death.[2][6]

According to David Cowhig, a U.S. Foreign Service officer at the Beijing embassy during the 1990s, Wang's research "was also the single most important source" that the United States had in understanding the AIDS epidemic in China, which was used in informing China–United States relations during the presidency of Bill Clinton.[2] By 2001, the Chinese government affirmed that more than half a million citizens in central China may have been infected by HIV due to the poor collection practices that Wang had exposed.[5] The BBC and The Guardian have credited Wang with potentially saving tens of thousands of lives.[6][5]

The King of Hell's Palace

Wang at opening night of The King of Hell's Palace

In the month prior to her death, Wang was involved in the production of a play based on story of HIV epidemic in Zhoukou region and her whistleblowing, entitled The King of Hell's Palace, that was to open at the Hampstead Theatre in London. However, she reported that family and friends living in China had been intimidated to pressure her to drop the show. She said that this pressure was happening because Chinese officials were afraid of publicity, "but even after all this time, I will still not be silenced, even though I am deeply sad that this intimidation is happening yet again." She believed that the play would help expose corruption in Chinese health service, save people and help persecuted Chinese doctors and AID activists like Gao Yaojie and Wan Yanhai.[7][8]

Personal life

Wang's first husband was Geng Honghai, an employee of the Ministry of Health. They had a daughter, Samantha Geng, a clinical pharmacist.[1] Wang's husband Geng was shunned by his colleagues during Wang's whistleblowing campaign, and their marriage ended in divorce. After moving to the United States in 2001, Wang took the English name Sunshine. Wang never felt safe enough to return to China.[6] In 2005, she married Gary Christensen. They adopted her elder brother's two children,[3] Julie Zou, an army nurse, and David Zou, an engineer.[1][2]

Wang died from an apparent heart attack while she was hiking with Christensen in a canyon in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 21 September 2019.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Shuping Wang". Larkin Mortuary. Archived from the original on September 26, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Langer, Emily (September 25, 2019). "Shuping Wang, whistleblower who exposed China's HIV/AIDS crisis, dies at 59". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 26, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
  3. ^ a b "揭露愛滋病被迫遠走他鄉◎ 金 鐘". www.open.com.hk. Archived from the original on June 12, 2017. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  4. ^ a b c McLaughlin, Kathleen (September 27, 2018). "My career as an international blood smuggler". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 26, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
  5. ^ a b c Busby, Mattha (September 26, 2019). "Contaminated blood whistleblower dies in US". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 26, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
  6. ^ a b c "Shuping Wang: Whistleblower who exposed HIV scandal in China dies". BBC. September 26, 2019. Archived from the original on September 26, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
  7. ^ Billington, Michael (September 13, 2019). "From Beijing to Hampstead: how tale of HIV whistleblower rattled Chinese state". The Guardian. Archived from the original on September 26, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
  8. ^ "Chinese AIDS Whistleblower Dies After Play Goes Ahead to Standing Ovation". Radio Free Asia. September 27, 2019. Archived from the original on September 30, 2019. Retrieved September 30, 2019.

Further reading

Wikiquote has quotations related to Shuping Wang.
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