Lead Sickens 1,300 Children in China

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/asia/21china.html?_r=1&em?

By MICHAEL WINES
Published: August 20, 2009

BEIJING ? Lead pollution from a newly opened and unlicensed manganese smelter has poisoned more than 1,300 children in southeastern China?s Hunan Province, state-run media said on Thursday, the second case of mass lead poisoning in the past month.

Officials in Wenping, 970 miles south of Beijing, shut down the smelter, the Wugang Fine-Processed Manganese Smelting Factory, last week and detained two of its owners after about 1,000 local residents protested the poisoning, the English-language state newspaper China Daily reported.

The plant?s general manager remained at large.

Tests subsequently found elevated levels of lead in the blood of 1,354 children, or about 7 in 10 children who were examined, the official news agency, Xinhua, reported. The severity of the poisoning cannot be measured without further testing; 17 of the 83 children who received the advanced tests were hospitalized.

Lead poisoning damages the nervous and reproductive systems and can permanently cripple children?s growth and intellectual development.

The report of poisoning in Wugang followed a similar case in Shaanxi Province, in north-central China, where state news reports say 851 children living near the nation?s fourth-largest smelter have tested positive for lead poisoning since early August. More than 170 have since been hospitalized.

Angry residents of two Shaanxi villages were reported on Monday to have marched to the smelter, tearing down fences and attacking trucks before police officers restored order.

Local officials have promised that the smelter, which produces lead and zinc, will not reopen until it meets pollution standards.

On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported that the Shaanxi smelter, which is in the town of Changqing, was under heavy guard by police and plainclothes officers. The officers sought to interrupt journalists? interviews with local residents.

Pollution is a serious problem across China, where breakneck industrial development has fouled both air and water to sometimes extraordinary degrees.

Although the national government has committed to clean-up measures, the World Bank says 59 percent of the water in China?s seven major rivers is unfit to drink, and the government says the air in about a quarter of cities is unhealthy.

The Wugang manganese smelter is in one of China?s major iron and steel centers. Manganese is often added to steel to increase its tensile strength. According to Xinhua, seven other smelters also operate in Wugang City, an area of about 700,000 residents that includes Wenping town.

Wugang City?s deputy environment chief, Huang Wenbin, was quoted by Xinhua as saying the smelter opened in May 2008 without required environmental permits. Other news reports said it began producing manganese about a year ago.

A kindergarten and a primary and middle school are within 1,700 feet of the smelter, Xinhua said.

Residents were reported to have raised questions about the smelter in July after their children began falling ill and refusing to eat.

On Aug. 8, about 1,000 residents blocked a road to the plant, leading to a confrontation with 200 officials and police officers.

The protesters overturned a police car before calm was restored, China Daily reported.

The plant was ordered closed on Aug. 13.

 

[Tonka]

Re: Lead Sickens 1,300 Children in China

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/21/china.lead.poisoning/index.html

Children with lead poisoning jam China hospital

By Emily Chang
CNN

FENGXIANG COUNTY, China (CNN) -- At the Fengxiang County Hospital in Shaanxi Province, children are sleeping two to a bed. Cots line the hallways and hospital beds crowd offices to accommodate the ceaseless flow of new patients. In the last two weeks, so many children have been diagnosed with lead poisoning that there's barely enough room for everyone.


Villagers who live near the plant say almost all children have excessive lead levels in their blood.

1 of 3 Their parents are outraged and confused.

"My toddler is a year and nine months old," says Pen Xiaoxia holding her daughter in the hospital ward. "Her hair isn't growing and she's sick all the time."

"My older daughter's nails stopped growing, and her hands are bigger than normal," Pen told CNN. "She doesn't listen to me and she's very rebellious. She can't remember what I told her and she always has a headache."

Holding their children in one arm, every parent in the hospital clutched a thin white sheet of paper in the other, showing the results of their child's blood tests.

In the room next door, nine-year-old Lei Xinyuan was said to have one of the most serious cases in the hospital. She looked like she could be six or seven years old.

"She stopped growing last year," says her father, Mr. Lei. Watch children await treatment for lead poisoning ?

In total, more than 850 children in the area have tested positive for excessive levels of lead in their blood, according to government officials. All of them live in Madaokou, Sunjianantou, and other villages clustered around the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Plant. Angry parents attacked the plant this week and police were called in to restore order.

After repeated phone calls, company officials said they could not comment and referred all questions to the county government.

County officials said they have ordered the plant to shut down within days.

"We are planning to relocate all residents as fast as possible," says He Hongnian, Vice Governor of Fengxiang County.

State-run media reports the relocation could take as long as two years. Environmentalists say the area is already polluted and extremely dangerous. Lead poisoning can continue to occur via contaminated air, water, soil or food, especially crops grown in tainted areas.

Doctors say chronic exposure can lead to life-long consequences, even death.

"[With] children in international settings, you see a lot more fatalities from lead poisoning," says Dr. Mary Jean Brown with the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control.

"Children can become mentally retarded, and even children who don't have serious symptoms, you might look at them and not even know they've had lead poisoning," Brown adds. "Those children will later have problems in school, they'll have attentional deficits, they may have behavioral problems that will make it difficult for them to learn how to control themselves and their tempers."

China has faced problems with pollution as the country has moved forward with industrial development and economic growth. The government has committed to clean-up measures. But concerns remain.

Chinese authorities closed a second metal smelter this month after more than 1,300 children were found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood, according to state-run media. That case involved children living near a manganese plant near Wugang, in Hunan Province, Xinhua news agency said. Angry parents there also protested.

Back in Shaanxi province, on the streets of Sunjianantou village, which is situated right next to the Dongling plant, parents clamored to discuss their children's test results, scribbled onto white pieces of official paper.

Only the most serious cases of lead poisoning are being treated at the county hospital, all expenses paid by the government.

Zhang Juntao is the father of two children who both tested positive for abnormal blood-lead levels, but not high enough to go to the hospital.

"They always bite their fingers. Sometimes they even bite other kids when they get mad," Zhang says. "I've been reading in books that those are symptoms of lead poisoning."

He says his four-year-old son, Zhang Yicong, is two years behind in school and is underperforming in math. His four-year-old daughter, Zhang Jia, has chronic stomach aches.


Their father says he feels helpless, like he can't protect his children from being poisoned in their own home.

"If I had the means, I wouldn't allow my children to go to school here," he says. "The only way is to leave this place, but we can't afford it."