Childrens' Blood Lead Up To 5 Times Chinese Legal LImits - Qinghai

[hatrack]

THE blood of hundreds of children has been found to contain lead several times higher than the state's permitted level in Huangzhong County, Qinghai Province. Two lead processing factories are still operating, despite the sacking of a deputy county governor and the county's environmental protection chief, reported The Beijing News yesterday.

The blood of all children at a kindergarten in the Ganhetan Industrial Park housing the lead factories was found to exceed the state standard for lead content in blood, the newspaper said, citing the kindergarten head, Yan Youxiang. The report didn't say how many children were at the facility.

The national safe level for lead content in the human blood is 50 milligrams per liter. However, the county's environmental authorities found in a medical check that the figure for some of the kindergarten children was 444 milligrams per liter, according to the report.

Medical authorities took blood samples of 26 students at the Ganhe Middle School in the area. All the sampled children's blood exceeded the nationally permitted lead level, the highest content at 466 milligrams per liter. There were 322 students in the middle school. In addition, the blood of all the nearly 200 children at a nearby village was found to exceed the lead standard, with the highest at 502 milligrams per liter, the report said.

EDIT

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/art/2006/03/29/255415/Lead_factories_injure_children.htm

[sam sarrha]

1. the major cause of death in China is Environmental Polution