BEIJING (AP) China's Commerce Ministry has begun to backtrack on a proposal to ban HIV-infected people from the country's public bathhouses after the plan was criticized by government health experts as unnecessary and discriminatory.
The ban was contained within a packet of prospective regulations governing public bathhouses that was released by the ministry online last Sunday for public comment, as the government seeks to improve its communication with the public. But the episode has highlighted another problem: Chinese government agencies don't talk much to each other, either.
Much of the criticism of the plan has come not from members of the public many of whom have supported a ban but other government agencies that were not consulted on the matter despite it being more of a health issue than a commerce one.
"Over so many years, there has been no epidemiological investigation showing anybody being infected because of exposure in public bathhouses," said Wu Hao, a Beijing researcher quoted on the website of a national AIDS prevention center overseen by the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
"It seems to have gone too far to bar HIV patients from entering baths," he was quoted as saying.
