December 3, 2009
On Tuesday at a Beijing train station, AIDS activists disrupted an official World AIDS Day event to demand more government help for those living with HIV. About 20 people wearing white masks reading "Infected blood transfusions cause AIDS" took over a stage that had been set up by China's Red Cross. The AIDS epidemic in China was touched off in the 1990s by an unsanitary blood plasma-buying scheme that infected many sellers. "Now that we've put ourselves out there, there is a chance that we'll be beaten or arrested in the future," said a woman whose son is HIV-positive. "It's OK because we have nothing left to lose."