Reliance on China health sector raises searching questions for Baidu

BEIJING: The death of a student following experimental cancer treatment he found through China´s biggest search engine, Baidu Inc, has exposed the faultlines in the company´s business model, which relies heavily on income from the country´s lightly regulated health sector. Before his death, student Wei Zexi, 21, criticised the military-run hospital that provided the failed treatment for misleading claims about its effectiveness and accused Baidu, which controls 80 percent of the Chinese search market, of promoting false medical information. This week the health ministry began an investigation into the hospital, while the internet regulator began an investigation into Baidu. The regulators have not said what, if any, offences or regulations might have been broken and did not respond to requests for comment. Analysts at Daiwa said regulators could be checking for compliance with China´s Advertisements Law, which says medical sector advertising should not contain assertions about effectiveness. Baidu said it was also conducting an investigation and would fully cooperate with the regulator. It is not clear that conventional treatment - typically surgery to remove the tumour - would have cured the rare synovial sarcoma that Wei suffered from. Reuters has not been able to reach the hospital for comment.