BEIJING | China’s plans to vaccinate 100 million children and come a step closer to eradicating measles has set off a popular outcry that highlights widening public distrust of the authoritarian government after repeated health scandals.
Since the Health Ministry announced the World Health Organization-backed measles vaccination plan last week, authorities have been flooded with queries, and Internet bulletin boards have been plastered with worried messages. Conspiracy theories saying the vaccines are dangerous have spread by cell- phone text messages.
The public skepticism has even been covered by state-run media, which noted the lack of trust was about more than vaccines.
“Behind the public’s panic over the rumors is an expression of the citizens’ demands for security and a crisis in confidence,” a columnist wrote in the Chongqing Daily newspaper.
“The lack of trust toward our food and health products was not formed in one day,” said the Global Times newspaper. “Repairing the damage and building credibility will take a very long time. The public health departments need to take immediate action on all fronts.”
In recent years, government agencies have dragged their feet or withheld information about the spread of SARS, bird flu and, last month, an outbreak of cholera. China’s slow response to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, was widely blamed for causing the outbreak that swept the globe in 2003, and led to deep mistrust both internally and internationally.
Milk products contaminated with industrial chemicals are still turning up despite a scandal two years ago in which tainted infant formula sickened 300,000 babies and killed at least six.
Feeding into worries about the measles vaccine were media reports in March that vaccines for encephalitis, hepatitis B and other diseases possibly killed four children and seriously sickened dozens in one province.
The health ministry said an investigation showed those vaccines were improperly stored but subsequent illnesses were unrelated. Many remain unconvinced.
Meanwhile, two Chinese vaccine makers recently said they shut operations after rabies vaccines they produced were found to be substandard.
The ministry has tried to calm the public’s anxieties about the 10-day measles immunization drive, which started Saturday. It has busily issued statements, refuted rumors and held briefings to emphasize the need for the vaccine as well as its safety.
The campaign, likely the world’s largest, targets all children ages 8 months to 4 or 14 years, depending on locality, and is intended to include remote areas, migrant communities and other places where previous vaccination coverage has been spotty.
Yet the publicity is not likely to easily reassure a public increasingly skeptical of reassurances from a government often seen as opaque and unaccountable, especially where public health is involved.
“This time how could the public have no doubts? They are asking: ’Is there an outbreak of the disease? Are previous vaccinations not working? Are the people in the government trying to make money from this?’” newspaper commentator Wei Yingjie said in an interview.
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