China’s state-run media has accused internet giant Baidu of putting profits before people following the death of a 21-year-old student who used its search engine to seek out ineffective treatment for cancer.

Wei Zexi, from Shaanxi province, died on 12 April after undergoing expensive experimental treatment that he had learned about through the search engine of Baidu, China’s answer to Google.

On Monday, amid growing public anger, the Communist party’s official mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, attacked Baidu for allegedly promoting potentially dubious medical treatments in its search results in exchange for money.

“There have been hospitals making profits at the cost of killing patients who were directed by false advertisements paid at a higher rank in search results,” the newspaper claimed, adding: “With great power comes great responsibility... profit considerations shall not be placed over social responsibility.”

According to reports in the Chinese media, Wei died of synovial sarcoma, a rare form of soft tissue cancer that can affect a person’s legs, arms or torso.

In the months leading up to his death he underwent four rounds of experimental and ultimately unsuccessful treatment at the Second Hospital of the Beijing Armed Police Corps in the Chinese capital, for which his family paid more than 200,000 yuan (£21,000).



The treatment reportedly involved using cells produced by the patient’s immune system to fight the illness.



Just weeks before he died, Wei expressed anger at Baidu in an online post in which he said he regretted seeking a cure through the company’s search engine. “Baidu, we did not know how much evil it could do,” Wei wrote, according to state media reports.



There was outrage in China this week as online reports about Wei’s case went viral and Baidu was accused of not doing enough to vet its advertisers.

“[Baidu] makes money by taking lives,” one critic wrote according to Xinhua, which claimed the internet giant made at least 10bn yuan (£1.05bn) last year from advertisements placed by private hospitals.

On Monday, China’s internet watchdog, the Cyberspace Administration of China, announced it was sending a team of investigators to examine what role, if any, Baidu played in the student’s death.

The company’s shares slumped by nearly 8% after the announcement of that decision.

In a statement Baidu said: “Our deepest condolences go out to Wei Zexi’s family. Baidu is a trusted company and we uphold extremely high standards to make our platform safe and trustworthy.”



The so-called “Wei Zexi incident” is the second major controversy Baidu, which enjoys about 80% of China’s search engine market, has faced this year.



In January internet users rounded on the company after it emerged that Baidu had sold the rights to run an online group for haemophilia sufferers to a company that then filled it with dubious medical advice.

State media alleged that in pursuit of profits, Baidu had allowed its online health forums to become “flooded with quacks and advertisements for unlicensed hospitals”.

Thousands of internet users subsequently announced a boycott of Baidu.



In a strongly worded editorial Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said Baidu’s reputation had taken a “huge battering” as a result of the two cases. They suggested the company valued “monetary gain over the welfare of its users,” it said.

Xinhua also hit out at the company’s “dumb” response to public criticism over its actions.

“From where we are standing, there seems to be a growing disconnect between Baidu and its corporate social responsibility,” it said.

On Tuesday Baidu said it paid “particular vigilance” to its “healthcare vertical” and had “proactively cleaned up the customer base” using measures including the careful screening of potentially misleading adverts.

But an opinion piece in the state-run China Daily newspaper blamed the company’s “virtual monopoly of online searches” for the controversies and suggested that needed to change.

“The only way to stop such harmful activities is to break Baidu’s search monopoly,” it said.