Editor in China sacked for expose on authorities negligence in vaccine deaths incident

Sydney, May 12 (ANI): In yet another case of Chinese authorities muzzling the media, an intrepid Chinese editor has been sacked after his paper ran a story exposing the careless handling of health vaccines that may have caused the deaths and serious illnesses of children in Shanxi Province.

Bao Yuehang, the chief-editor of the China Economic Times that employs four hundred people and is controlled by the State Council's Development Research Centre, was also the paper's publisher and Communist Party secretary.

The report caused a furore in China within hours of its release with the authorities trashing it as false, and was downplayed on websites following orders from the state's Propoganda Department.

However, Yuehang has stood firmly behind the story and its writer.

Wang Keqin a prominent investigative journalist in China who wrote the report exposed how a gross failure to refrigerate vaccines had led to the deaths of four children and the illness of at least seventy-four others in Shanxi Province, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The vaccines were left unrefrigerated to prevent their stickers from peeling off, ironically these stickers depicted the government's quality assurance.

"My chief editor, Bao Yueyang, and deputy editor, Che Haigang, have said constantly, 'In order to ensure that the lives of China's children are kept safe, we will fight until the end!' " Wang had previously written on his blog, the paper reports. (ANI)