洛杉矶时报一篇关于中国乙肝歧视的详细报道

By Ching-Ching Ni
Los Angeles Times

我的翻译：
中国嘉兴——在几个月前，周一超的目标就是得到一份好的工作来赡养她守寡的母亲，这在他看来是并不难达到。

周一超参加了公务员考试并且得到了很高的成绩，它的面试也是锦上添花，这位22岁的年轻人知道他健壮的体魄和良好的礼貌将给他未来的上司留下深刻的印象。

但是他的申请遭到了拒绝，因为乙肝检测成阳性，这是一种肝病，他对此一无所知。中国的政府机关一般都会根据规定以肝脏健康不佳为由将这类求职者据之门外，很少有例外。随后，周一超用水果刀将拒绝录用他的两个政府工作人员刺成一死一重伤。现在，他已经被判处死刑。

有意思的是这起故意杀人案并没有引起人们的愤怒，周的名字反而成了一场全国运动的战斗号召，反对就业中存在的歧视和法律保护的缺乏。

“这个案件的结果将影响到中国乙肝人群的整个未来”周的律师毖雪军说到“社会对这部分人的不公平歧视将导致一些人做出过激的反社会行为，这是一个严重的社会问题。基本上可以这样讲，周用自己的生命唤起了人们对这个问题的关注”。

有超过1.2亿的中国人是慢性乙肝携带者，大约占中国总人口的10%，很多都象周一样并没有什么病症，也不会对他们的同事造成威胁。

不通过日常接触传播

乙肝是通过体液交换导致传播的，比如受污染的血液，无保护的性行为，共用针头以及母婴传播，日常接触是不会传播的，比如握手。乙肝任其发展可导致肝衰竭和死亡。全世界每年死于此病的大约有100万人，其中三分之一是中国人。

象艾滋一样，乙肝还不能被治愈，但与艾滋不同的是，乙肝可以通过简单的疫苗注射得到预防。中国政府正在有步骤的推行新生儿乙肝免疫从而减少受感染的人群，提倡者们认为实行全民免疫远远要比容忍广泛的歧视有效的多。

“中国人了解了更多的关于艾滋病的知识，因为至少有一些活动告诉人们艾滋病的传播途径”张先著说，他是另一位因为乙肝遭政府拒绝的大学毕业生，“但是没有什么活动去告诉人们乙肝的传播途径，乙肝被完全忽视了，因为它不象艾滋病那样具有致命性”。

在过去那种从摇篮到坟墓式的社会主义体系中，人们的工作都是国家分配的，很少有雇主费事的去检查雇员们的健康状况，他们也不能随意的解雇雇员。

在中国新资本主义体系的经济中，只有那些最好的，或者身体上最合适的才会被选中参加工作，而中国有大约一亿到两亿的失业者，每年有200万的大学毕业生涌入人才市场。
在中国，身高、婚姻和健康状况都是雇主所要考虑的，在这种环境下，乙肝检测阳性就意味着没有工作。

为了应付这种问题，一些乙肝携带者们采用作弊，请健康人代为体检或是频繁跳槽的方式躲避检查。幸运的人们出走海外，在那里隐私法禁止雇主询问这样的问题。更多的人则是从哪里来还要到哪里去，通常到偏远地区，尽量忘掉自己曾取得大学文凭，一些人过着种植或体力劳动的生活。

超越了人才市场

社会歧视和医学无知已经突破了人才市场的范围
一个关于乙肝携带者的新网站充满了可怕的故事。一位母亲通过母婴传播将乙肝传给了自己的孩子，当地幼儿园拒绝接受任何乙肝成阳性的儿童，在遭到几次拒绝后，她只有将自己三岁的孩子送到乡下由外婆照料生活，除此之外她别无选择。

因为担心泄漏自己的健康情况，一些携带者从来不约会或是结婚，而有些则瞒着他们的配偶。
张打响了针对政府的乙肝歧视第一案，“我希望为我们这个群体做一些事情”张说“我知道起诉政府并不是一件容易的事情，许多人不敢这么做，但是我要做，因为有太多的人象我这样被工作据之门外，躲在黑暗的角落里听天由命，我们正面临着生存危机”。

英文版：

Hepatitis B cause for discrimination in China

By Ching-Ching Ni
Los Angeles Times

JIAXING, China — Until a few months ago, Zhou Yichao's goal, to get a good job and support his widowed mother, seemed well within reach.

He had just taken the public-servant exam and scored among the very top. His face-to-face interview could only help his prospects, as the 22-year-old knew his potential employers would be impressed with his tall athletic build and good manners.

Then his application was rejected on the basis that he tested positive for hepatitis B, a liver disease he never knew he had. With few exceptions, Chinese government agencies legally may weed out candidates based on the health of their liver.

Zhou bought a fruit-carving knife, found the two officials who rejected his application and stabbed one to death and seriously wounded the other.

Today Zhou sits on death row.

But instead of outrage against an intentional murderer, Zhou's name has become the rallying call of a national movement against discriminatory hiring practices and the lack of legal redress.

"The outcome of this case could affect the entire future of people with hepatitis in China," said Bi Xuejun, Zhou's attorney. "Unfair discrimination against a whole segment of society could push some people to commit extreme antisocial acts. This is a serious social problem. Zhou has basically sacrificed his own life to bring attention to this issue."

More than 120 million people, about 10 percent of the Chinese population, are chronic carriers of the disease, many of whom like Zhou do not show any symptoms of infection and should not pose a threat to their co-workers.

Not contagious through casual contact

Hepatitis B is spread through the exchange of bodily fluids, such as contaminated blood, unprotected sex, shared needles and between infected mothers and their newborns. It is not contagious through casual contact such as shaking hands.

Full-blown hepatitis B causes liver failure and death. Nearly a million people worldwide die from the disease every year, about one-third of them Chinese.

Like HIV/AIDS, there is no cure for the illness. Unlike AIDS, however, hepatitis B is preventable with a simple vaccine. While the Chinese government is stepping up efforts to immunize newborns and gradually reduce the overall infected population, inoculating the entire population has proved far tougher, advocates say, than tolerating widespread discrimination.

"Chinese know a lot more about AIDS because at least there are campaigns that teach people about how it is spread," said Zhang Xianzhu, another graduate rejected by a state employer after his hepatitis B test. "But there are no campaigns to educate them about hepatitis, how it's caught and spread. And because it is not as deadly as AIDS it has totally been neglected."

Under the old cradle-to-grave socialist system, individuals were assigned job units and few employers bothered to check the medical health of someone they couldn't fire anyway.

In China's new capitalist-style economy, only the very best, or physically fit, are chosen for jobs in a nations where between 100 million and 200 million are out of work and 2 million new college graduates join the job market each year.

Height, marriage and health status can be considered by employers in China. Under the circumstances, a positive hepatitis test can mean no job.

To cope, some cheat, hiring healthy people to take the required physical, or hop from job to job to avoid detection. The lucky ones go overseas, where privacy laws forbid employers to ask such questions. Many more go back where they came from, usually rural areas where they try to forget they ever earned a college diploma. Some resign themselves to a life of farming or other manual labor.

Beyond the job market

But social discrimination and medical ignorance also go beyond the job market.

A new Web site for hepatitis carriers is filled with horror stories. According to one mother who is herself a carrier and had passed it to her child, her local kindergartens refused to accept anyone who tests positive for the virus. After several rejections at various local schools, she had no choice but send her 3-year-old to live with her grandmother in the countryside.

Afraid to betray their health status, some carriers never date or marry. Others keep it from their spouse.

Zhang filed the country's first discrimination lawsuit against the government.

"I wanted to do something for this community," Zhang said. "I know it is not easy for the people to sue the government and many people are afraid to do it. But I did it because there are so many people like me locked out of jobs and rotting in their little dark corners of the world. We face a crisis of survival."