In her one-bedroom apartment, Dr. Gao Yaojie — known to many as “the AIDS Granny” — moves with great difficulty through her tidy clutter and stacks of belongings. In the small kitchen, she stirs a pot of rice and bean porridge, one of the few things she can digest. She lost most of her stomach in surgery after a suicide attempt four decades ago and suffered multiple beatings during the Cultural Revolution.
Kathleen McLaughlin is an award-winning journalist who works as a contributing correspondent at Science. She spent 15 years reporting from China.
McLaughlin has reported from Asia and Africa for a...