Opponents

Zhao Jicheng (sohu.com): Medical evidence reveals that HIV is only transmitted through unprotected sex, contaminated blood transfusions and from mother to child during pregnancy. People will not get infected through ordinary daily contact with such patients. Thus, HIV/AIDS carriers should not be discriminated against so severely. Normal contact with these patients in bathhouses will not lead to HIV infection.

HIV/AIDS-related legislation should be based on scientific and specific evidence, so as to better protect patients' dignity and equal right as well as ensure public hygiene and safety.

It's a pity that most of those who support the ban show groundless discrimination and prejudice. I can't think of any reason to block HIV/AIDS patients from public bathhouses. If ordinary people reject these patients because of personal discomfort or fear, it is their own psychological problem. Laws are not supposed to support such baseless discomfort or fear.

I hope that medical experts would have the opportunity to become involved in relevant legislation, so that the problem of whether HIV/AIDS patients should be allowed into bathhouses could be decided in accordance with scientific evidence, rather than personal emotions. The ban on HIV/AIDS patient entry into bathhouses will not only hurt this weak social group, but the whole of society.

Wu Hao (Beijing Morning Post): To post signs demanding those with venereal diseases and contagious dermatoses not to enter public bathhouses is a way to protect other users' safety and health. Signs of such warnings have been placed at public pools, bathhouses and spas for many years.

Indeed, from a legal perspective, if a venereal disease carrier deliberately transmits his or her disease to others, it's a problem. However, no epidemiological investigation has shown that people will get infected with HIV by bathing in public bathhouses. It's difficult for this virus to survive in such water due to its temperature. HIV is active in people's blood and will soon die after leaving the body. Besides, intact skin is a strong firewall against this virus.

HIV can also be found in saliva and tears, but the odds of catching HIV through these is small. The virus enters another person's body through wounds or blood, so it's impossible for it to be transmitted through coughing or sneezing. The rule to bar HIV patients from entering public bathhouses is excessive.

Wang Junrong (people.com.cn): To post signs is one thing while putting the regulation into practice is another. If the regulation can't be well implemented, signs are useless. Bathhouses are not in the position to ask their customers whether they are HIV/AIDS positive or not, while carriers would probably not tell the bathhouse they are on their own.

In China, HIV/AIDS carriers are still very sensitive to public opinion, as discrimination remains widespread. The country has already made unremitting efforts to remove discrimination against HIV/AIDS carriers. Chinese law protects the right of such patients as well as their spouses and children in going to school, seeking jobs, visiting the hospital, and participating in social activities. No organization or individual should discriminate against such patients and their families. Moreover, certain activists and volunteers invite HIV/AIDS patients to dinner and hug them in public.

UNAIDS and China's Ministry of Health issued an investigation report on discrimination faced by the country's HIV/AIDS carriers, which revealed that 41.7 percent of interviewees were once discriminated against due to their infection. Two thirds of interviewees said that their families have been discriminated against because of them. With the knowledge that someone is HIV/AIDS positive, a quarter of medical workers, as well as over one third of government officials and teachers, develop discriminatory attitudes toward such carriers. Besides, more than 12 percent of interviewees said that, since they were tested HIV-positive, they were refused entry to hospitals at least once. All these facts show that in China, such patients are already living in a very negative environment, to which a sign forbidding them from entering bathhouses adds even more insult. It's really a disappointing regulation.

The feasibility of such a regulation is questionable. The ban would only exacerbate people's misunderstanding, discrimination and fear of HIV/AIDS while failing to help reduce transmission.

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