Among Chinese, Fear and Prejudice About Hepatitis B

"If the government turns these people down, the public will turn against them, too. Since the law already discriminates, nobody will violate the law to hire these people," Lu said.

In Wujiang, Lu said, 22 employees were fired from companies or divisions under Cal-Comp Electronics, which is based in Thailand and which produces products for Hewlett-Packard, among other companies.

After Liao was given the bad news by his supervisor, he said he immediately went to a hospital for a second round of tests. A doctor confirmed that Liao was a carrier but told him that his liver and DNA were both normal and that his condition ought not to affect his job.

"He said the biggest difference between carriers and the sick is whether your liver is normal, and since mine is normal it will not affect my work," Liao said. "He advised me to be tested every three to six months and told me not to share a toothbrush or a razor with others."

He added, "I thought if I show this to the company, they will not ask me to leave."

He brought the results to the human resources manager, and she passed them to the company doctor. Later, the doctor told Liao, "Personally, I don't think this will affect your job, but I'm not the one who makes the decision."

The day after that conversation, Liao said, an e-mail from the doctors, copied to the head of human resources, said the company would rely on the result of its own blood test, which Liao has never seen. He was offered $996 -- three months' salary -- and asked to fill out a form that said he was "unfit for the position."

The company denies it has discriminated against Liao or any of the other employees who contend they were fired, insisting they left voluntarily or were given an option to rest at home for three months and return after they recovered.

In people acutely infected with hepatitis B, the virus is usually cleared in that amount of time. However, among those who become chronic carriers, no amount of recuperation will rid them of the virus.

"China's law says that laborers have equal rights of jobs, and our company has already fully considered the equal opportunities of employees. We didn't discriminate against them," said Wu Qunsheng, vice manager of the company.

"We need to take into consideration the health of the 6,000 employees in the company, and we already offered well-meaning suggestions to them. We ask them to go rest at home, and if they recover, they can come back," Wu said. "Our explanation at that time was that among our 6,000 employees, some are infectious, so they need to rest at home, and we can keep their positions for them. But some were not willing to take our suggestion -- it was their idea to leave."

Wu said they found 1,268 employees who had not yet received the hepatitis B antibody, and immediately asked the local epidemic prevention clinic to vaccinate them.