China: Hospital selling phony test reports
A hospital in southern China has allegedly been selling fraudulent hepatitis B test reports, the government-run Xinhua news agency reports.
The Hainan Daily said that Danzhou First People's Hospital in the Hainan province will sell a negative test result to a hepatitis B carrier for $25.
A doctor at the hospital told the newspaper that it usually sells five or six such fraudulent reports a month.
Hepatitis B carriers have a hard time finding work or attending school, Xinhua reported. About 10 percent of China's population, or 120 million people, are infected with the virus which causes liver disease. Experts have called for added employment protections for hepatitis B carriers.
Xinhua said that many local governments have bans on hiring hepatitis B carriers, although some have lifted the bans.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International
