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Shuping “Sunshine” Wang, a physician, researcher, and public health whistleblower during an AIDS epidemic in China, died September 21 while hiking, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. She was 59.
In the 1980s, Wang started her career as a doctor and hepatitis researcher in China. After testing blood serum samples from patients in 1992, she realized that the plasma collection station where she worked had unsanitary conditions for blood collection and processing, which led to cross-contamination that contributed to a widespread hepatitis C epidemic among people who donated and received plasma. After reporting her findings to officials, she was fired from her job, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
Wang then joined the Zhoukou Health Bureau, where she found that 13 percent of blood donors were HIV-positive, and that at this facility as well, cross-contamination was responsible for spreading infection. The Health Bureau challenged her results ...
