Okay, I was about to blame YLE for oversimplifying things when they said one baby with syphilis is born every hour in China. I was about to complain how there's no way how that is true, and even if it was nearly so statistically over a carefully selected period of time it still wouldn't be accurate reporting. I would say they dumbed down a medical article and how that shouldn't be done since the original writing is scientific, but I can't blame them.
Well, I can actually blame them, but not them alone.
Google "babies born every hour in china" and you get pages and pages full of the same news in English, repeated over and over. It's actually difficult to find a more intelligent point on the same subject, just the same catchy phrase repeated over and over.
Repeating catchy phrases is not news reporting.
YLE just went with the flow and copypasted the report to and from a translator. The problem with this is it's something people easily remember, it's how urban legends start. Medical texts shouldn't be dumbed down to that level.
And pay attention to how this is again China Brand news. Remeber how it works? All the news from or about China strike a very similar tone while not being very well written, and the vast majority is bad news. It's the McDonalds of news and that is our news with fries for the day.
Oh, and before I forget, the YLE original:
http://yle.fi/uutiset/terveys_ja_hyvinvointi/2010/06/kuppa_leviaa_arhakkaasti_kiinassa_1755091.html?origin=rss
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