On December 11, Liu Jin (pseudonym), a 37-year-old employee of a pharmaceutical plant in Shaoyang, Hunan Province, passed away due to acute and severe aplastic anemia (medical abbreviation as "severe aplasia"), which is a high-risk blood disease similar to leukemia.
Ms. Liu, Liu's wife, said that he was not the only one in Liu Jin's company who was diagnosed with the disease, and she questioned that the working environment of the pharmaceutical chemical factory caused her lover to fall ill. Ms. Liu introduced that after Liu Jin fell ill, he wrote a text recording the company's work experience, totaling more than 8,000 words, including Liu Jin's work experience in the company, the company's illegal emissions, two sets of data to cope with environmental protection inspections, and serious dust in the workshop.
On December 13, Zhou, the person in charge of the company, confirmed to the Jimu News reporter that Liu Jin was not the only employee suffering from the disease, but he said that Liu Jin's relevant text content wanted to put the responsibility on the company. Zhou said that the government has intervened in the investigation and mediation, and the relevant facts are subject to the government's investigation results.
He died of "severe aplastic aplasia".
According to Ms. Liu, her lover Liu Jin was born in 1986 and is 37 years old this year.
In March 2021, in order to take care of his parents and two children, Liu Jin returned to Longhui County from other places and came to work in Hunan Hecheng Pharmaceutical Chemicals Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hecheng Pharmaceutical"). At the end of February 2023, after working in the company for nearly two years, Liu Jin was diagnosed with acute and severe aplastic anemia.
"He didn't have this disease before, and he only joined the company after passing the medical examination. Ms. Liu said that her husband Liu Jin was in good health, and the routine blood test of the entry physical examination was also normal, and no problems were found.
At the beginning of February 2023, Ms. Liu found that Liu Jin had a lot of red spots on her body. "At the time, I thought it was something allergic, so I didn't pay much attention to it. Ms. Liu said that after two more days of work, her husband began to have a lot of bruises on his body, one by one, and more and more red spots on his body.
On February 13, Ms. Liu and her husband went to Longhui County People's Hospital for examination. At that time, the blood routine results showed that Liu Jin's platelet value was 5, and the normal value should be 100-300. The doctor asked for immediate hospitalization and recommended contacting a higher-level hospital for immediate transfer.
Results of diagnosis and treatment (photo provided by the interviewee)
After that, Liu Jin was transferred to the Third Affiliated Hospital of Changsha Xiangya Hospital. After two bone marrow aspirates and a series of tests, Liu Jin was diagnosed with acute and severe aplastic anemia at the end of February. At this time, Ms. Liu learned that her husband was suffering from a blood disease as serious as leukemia.
According to the medical certificate of the Department of Hematology of the Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University provided by Ms. Liu, Liu Jin was diagnosed with aplastic anemia (acute and severe), lung infection (bacteria + fungus), tuberculosis, renal insufficiency, and liver insufficiency.
Doctors told her that her husband had basically lost his hematopoiesis and that the only way to survive was a bone marrow transplant. Without a bone marrow transplant, Liu Jin would only have lived for a maximum of 3 months. After discussing with the family, they decided to let Liu Jin undergo a bone marrow transplant.
In May, Liu Jin's surgery was successfully completed. However, after the transplant, Liu Jin's condition was not very good, and complications such as infection and rejection appeared. Finally, in December this year, Liu Jin passed away.
Leave 8,000 words long to reprimand the factory floor
On December 13, Ms. Liu sent a Word document entitled "Record of Work Feelings of Hecheng Pharmaceutical Company", with a full text of 8,445 words, describing Liu Jin's experience in the company's illegal emissions, two sets of data to cope with environmental inspections, and serious dust in the working environment.
Ms. Liu said that this long article was written by her husband after he was diagnosed with the disease this year, and it is a true record of his work, and there is no falsehood.
According to the article, Liu Jin's first position in Hecheng Pharmaceutical was as an environmental protection operator. Exposure includes sewage analysis, sewage treatment, wastewater treatment, etc.
The article includes phrases such as "the outlet data system collapses" and "falsifying data every day", and also details how the company cleverly avoids sampling time to discharge sewage, and flushes the outlet with tap water to ensure that the discharge meets the discharge standards. The article mentions that the company will send a report to the CEO every day to report the operation data of the sewage station, but the data analysis results are available in two versions1 and 2. 1 is a real record of the day's operating data, and 2 is for the company's leaders or superior departments to check.
Related text (photo provided by the interviewee)
In November 2022, Liu Jin was arranged to the new workshop, and only then did he see the poor working environment.
The article said, "I remember when the first barrel of phosphorus pentachloride powder was added to the FH reaction pot, I was shocked, white dust instantly spread the entire second floor operation space, because the second floor window was sealed, the waste gas treatment device was just a pipe pretending to be connected to the third workshop waste gas treatment device (furnishings), this sour taste, I ran out instantly, but it was strange, colleagues did not run, and then they became Xi to the exchange." ”
"(20) Around the Chinese New Year in 23 years, GWC mother liquor recovery material mother liquor recovery, that is called a spectacular, because to add a large amount of toluene, that sour, it is unbelievable, can experience phosphorus pentachloride poison for 12 hours without escaping me, encounter this, I escaped from the workshop by the way, it is too terrible, take a sip and feel like I can go to heaven. ”
Liu Jin wrote, "Working 12 hours a day, 30 days a month, is getting harder and harder. It wasn't until February 2023 that he was diagnosed with severe aplastic disease.
In this record, Liu Jin believes that his diagnosis of the disease is directly and inevitably related to the company's poor working environment and the high concentration of chemical pollution released at work.
There are also others who suffer from blood diseases
Ms. Liu and her husband have two children, aged 9 and 3.
In the past few years, Ms. Liu has taken care of her two children and the elderly at home, and her husband Liu Jin has been working outside the home to support the family's expenses. After Liu Jin fell ill this year, Ms. Liu took care of her husband throughout the whole process until his death.
"In the early stage, my husband's medical treatment, including the cost of bone marrow transplant surgery, cost more than 2 million yuan in total. Ms. Liu said that in addition to the reimbursement part, she personally paid 1.2 million yuan out of her own pocket. In order to treat her husband's illness, the marriage house in the county seat of the two has been sold, and they have borrowed hundreds of thousands of yuan in debt. Now the family can only live in the old house in their hometown, and there is no source of income.
Ms. Liu said that after Liu Jin was diagnosed this year, her family asked the company for help, and the company "borrowed" 150,000 yuan from her for treatment, and the company's employees also donated to Liu Jin.
Coordination site (photo provided by the interviewee)
After Liu Jin's death, the county organized a coordination meeting, and the final result was that 50,000 yuan was given for funeral expenses, and there was no other compensation.
On the 13th, Ms. Liu told a Jimu News reporter that her lover's illness had a lot to do with the poor working environment in the factory. Because Liu Jin is not the only one suffering from related diseases.
Ms. Liu said that in the second half of this year, another colleague of Liu Jin, Liu, was also diagnosed with "severe aplastic anemia", but the condition was not as serious as Liu Jin. According to a certificate of diagnosis from Shaoyang Central Hospital obtained by the reporter, Liu is in his 50s this year, and his diagnosis includes severe aplastic anemia, secondary tuberculosis, renal insufficiency and other diseases. The Jimu News reporter contacted Liu's family, and the family said that his condition was stable, and others did not want to say more.
The company was officially named as an environmental hazard
According to the information on the official website of Hecheng Pharmaceutical, the company is a high-tech enterprise in Hunan Province and is located in Longhui Industrial Park, Shaoyang City. The company covers an area of 43,000 square meters, with a registered capital of 20 million yuan and more than 120 employees. Tianyancha information shows that the company was established in 1998.
According to public information, the company is based on the research and production of high-tech in the fields of fine chemicals, electronic chemicals, and special chemicals. A number of product quality standards are higher than the international industry standards, and the quality of "Hecheng" brand potassium ferrocyanide and potassium ferrocyanide ranks among the best in the same industry in the world.
It is understood that potassium ferricyanide can be used to make bleaching agents, corrosive agents, analytical reagents, mild oxidants, blueprint printing, indicators, etc. It is a chemical ingredient that is widely used.
"Double random and one open" spot check results (network screenshot)
Jimu News reporter learned that as early as 2018, some residents where the company is located reported the problem of "air pollution" of Hecheng Pharmaceutical on the government complaint platform, and said that the emitted gas was "foul-smelling", and the windows could not be opened. Some people also posted that the water pollution around the enterprise is serious.
According to a joint letter obtained by Jimu News reporters, in 2019, hundreds of villagers in the area where the company is located signed and pressed their fingerprints to protest the company's long-term illegal discharge of sewage and waste gas to pollute the environment, and jointly demanded that the company move out of the industrial park.
On July 3, 2023, the Shaoyang Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment issued the "Announcement of the Results of the "Double Random and One Public" Spot Check in the Second Quarter of 2023, according to which Hecheng Pharmaceutical "has unorganized emissions of on-site production waste gas and peculiar smell in the plant area; methanol of some hazardous waste in the plant area has not been sent to the workshop in time due to the need for secondary use, and there is a problem of open storage; and some of the dismantled waste gas collection pipelines are stored in the open air in the plant area, and there is a small amount of waste residue in the pipe wall, which has environmental risks and hidden dangers. ”
Companies say the government has stepped in to investigate
On the 13th, a Jimu News reporter contacted Zhou, the person in charge of Hecheng Pharmaceutical.
Zhou said that Liu Jin worked in the new workshop for more than 70 days, more than two months. After his illness, the company funded 150,000 yuan for treatment, and also called on employees to donate money to him.
"We had previously provided Liu Jin's personal information to the Occupational Disease Health Testing Center and went through the process of identifying occupational diseases, but the family did not trust our information. Zhou said that the relevant information related to Liu Jin's time, year, and position in the company, including some raw materials he had contacted, was provided truthfully by the company, and it was impossible to falsify.
Regarding Liu Jin's more than 8,000-word work record, the workshop environment is bad, emissions fraud and other problems mentioned, Zhou responded that in terms of environmental protection, the factory has special online monitoring and monitoring measures, "If you are caught secretly discharged, you will go to jail." Zhou said that Liu Jin wrote these words because he wanted to push the responsibility to the company after his illness, and he personally expressed his understanding. But at the same time, he said that there should be a basis for writing these words.
Zhou confirmed to reporters that another colleague of Liu Jin, Liu, was also ill, but he said that the employee was not exposed to "hazardous factors (in the process of production and labor, there are factors that have harmful effects on the health and working ability of employees and cause diseases)". Zhou said that at present, the government has intervened in the investigation, and the specific relevant information is mainly released by the government.
According to the Jimu News reporter, regarding Liu Jin's death, the Longhui County Political and Legal Committee, the Justice Bureau, the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and other departments all intervened in the incident. On the morning of the 14th, an official source in Longhui County responded to a Jimu News reporter that the local government was investigating the incident.
Source: Jimu News (Zhan Yu)