Posted on Friday, November 25, 2005 11:10 AM
#central kindom
via: eswn - The Masato Tashiro Statement, hexun opinion (in chinese)
several prominent international media including The New Scientist and german Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that there are already 300 people dead of bird flu in china, and their source is a japanese scientist working with WHO.
but the japanese scientist named Masato came out to deny that he said such things and asked the newspaper to correct the reportings:
First of all, it is not correct. Therefore, I would ask you to correct it.
In my presentation at the meeting in Marburg, I stated that WHO's official numbers of H5N1 human cases are only based on laboratory confirmed cases. It should be therefore an iceberg phenomenon. Due to poorly organized surveillance and information sharing systems in many affected countries including China, it is reasonable to consider that more cases have occurred actually. We have heard many 'rumors' or unauthorized information which we cannot confirm. In this context, I talked about a few examples of non-authorized information and rumors about Asian countries which I received through private channels. I clarified that I do not know the original sources and I cannot confirm whether they are true, how these numbers were derived and what laboratory tests and epidemiological investigation were done.
ESWN speculates how the rumor was created:
Here the chain of custody: Unverified Chinese web posting (at Boxun) of a statistical table that did not even look good; an off-hand mention by a scientist as an example of unverified data; report by a mainstream newspaper; magnification by a popular scientific journal; prominent publicity from Boxun as proof that an experts support the 300 deaths figure (see Boxun); an angry denial from the scientist. The only remaining question is whether Boxun will publish the denial and identify the data source (namely, itself).
before i condemn the "biased" western media, let me review another case, the Harbin water crisis, in which rumors became rampant in the first few days:
The official explanation was that it was routine maintenance
Previous to this, beginning around noon, November 20, there was a rumor that an earthquake has been predicted for Harbin.
Our campus first told us yesterday that they were "cleaning out the water tanks because they were dirty. But now they have retracted the story and said that it is because the water is polluted, but will not tell us what kind of pollutant it is.
an hexun opinion article commented on the continuing spreading of rumors that an earthquake was coming even after the Harbin government made it clear that was a rumor and the water stoppage was caused by water pollution:
although the truth has been revealed, but the ill effects of the previous "lying" (by the governments during SARS) remained and reduced the confidence of the public on the government. ... only a trustworthy government can breed a rational people and the rationality of the public. the credibility of the government and the rationality of the public have a relationship of virtuous circle. ... "irrational" public and their behaviors will intensify the government's habit of lying, so when the crisis come, the government will "lie" again in order to avoid the social unrest and panic, therefore creating a vicious circle.
related links:
shanghaiist - is china censoring bird flu reports?