Thursday, November 23, 2006

Environmental Health in China

Here are a few things I’ve observed and expect to observe again:

  • Someone spraying a solvent-based wood finish on a piece of furniture while smoking a cigarette, no respiratory protection. At least he was working outside.

  • Workers using jackhammers without hearing protection.

  • The ubiquitous 4-story lashed bamboo scaffolding.

  • Window washers dangling by cables (I think they’re cables, not ropes) from the tops of many-story high-rises.

  • Smoking! Not a big surprise, and it’s not quite as bad as I expected, but still a very popular bad habit. I’ve observed approximately 4 Chinese women smoking; the practice is more popular by far with men. Bill says that noticeably fewer Japanese smoke now than in 1992 – some progress being made somewhere in Asia. An article in PLOS Medicine in July 2006 describes the problem of smuggling cigarettes into China with the complicity of British American Tobacco.

  • Motorcycle riders wearing no helmets, or wearing the kind the bikers wear in states with helmet laws, the ones that look like relics of WWI. Some motorcyclists wear the ones that look like equestrian helmets, black velvet with a beanie button on top. Sometimes they even fasten the strap. I once saw a Chinese couple wearing regulation motorcycle helmets – only once. Bicycle helmets are for foreigners.

In the news:

Residents’ love affair with cars continues (China Daily, 10/31/06)

Shanghai residents’ intentions to purchase cars are growing fast despite the soaring price of plates and increasing traffic jams. Not to mention the air pollution!

Fatal accidents blamed on mopeds increase (Shanghai Daily, 10/31/06)
Traffic police are warning moped riders to be more careful as the vehicles have been involved in a growing number of fatal traffic accidents over the past year.

Asia’s vital challenge: Wise use of fresh water (International Herald Tribune, 11/2/06)

. . . The number of people in China alone who do not have access to clean water is nearly as large as those in the same circumstances in all of Africa. . . The starkest example of this came in November 2005 when the toxic chemicals benzene, nitrobenzene and aniline spilled into China’s Songhua River and polluted the Harbin water supply.

Spill cuts water supplies (IHT/NY Times, 11/2/06)
Water supplies to 28,000 people in northern China have been cut after an overturned truck spilled 33 tons of toxic oil into a river, the official Xinhua news agency reported Wednesday.

Hedge funds saddle up for Mongolian mines (IHT/Bloomberg, 11/2/06)
. . . Rapid economic growth, driven by copper and gold mining, is attracting investors willing to tolerate corruption and unpredictable regulation. Fund managers are taking on greater risk in small emerging markets once considered exotic. . . International investment in Mongolia’s mining, tourism and telecommunications industries is fuelling an economy where more than 30% of the 2.5 million people remain nomads. . . Real estate prices should continue to increase by 15% to 25% a year because of a housing shortage, rising incomes and the migration of nomads into Ulan Bator. . .

High levels of lead found in schoolchildren (IHT, 11/6/06)
Forty-seven schoolchildren in eastern China have been found to have excessive lead in their blood, the latest such case to hit the country. Tests on the children in Qili, Fujian Province, by the Disease Prevention and Control Center determined the high lead levels, the official Xinhua news agency reported Saturday. It said one 7-year-old boy was hospitalized for lead poisoning, and that a company, Meiheng Smelting, was the suspected source of the lead.

Coffee Crisis (City Weekend www.cityweekend.com.cn, sometime in October 2006)
How clean is your coffee? According to the Shanghai Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision, 80 percent of Shanghai’s coffee does not meet standards because of excessive amounts of copper and bacteria. Thank goodness we drink Peet’s!

Every few weeks, it seems, there is a short paragraph describing the latest mine disaster in China. This does not include the chronic diseases contracted by miners as a result of exposures at work.
BEIJING (IHT/Reuters, 11/17/06): All 34 coal miners trapped underground on Sunday in north China after explosives caught fire have been confirmed dead, state media said Thursday, bringing the death toll from two recent accidents to 81. The miners suffocated after more than four tons of illegally stored explosives caught fire at the Nanshan Colliery in Shanxi Province, where a quarter of China’s coal is mined.

Next Tuesday I am invited to attend a presentation entitled “Functional Superfoods and Combating Environmental Pollutants,” 50 rmb per person, limited seating available. It sounds a bit crackpot, but the parents at the international school are the ones who buy produce at the organic store, feed their children (or direct the ayi to feed the children) brown rice instead of white, and sign up to pay to listen to someone tell us how we can overcome the effects of all the pollution in Shanghai’s air, food and water. “SCIS - Hong Qiao PAFA (parents’ association) is delighted to invite parents to attend a special nutrition seminar conducted by a distinguished visiting Speaker from Hong Kong, Denice Wehausen, a U.S.-Licensed Nutritionist currently living and working in Hong Kong. Come learn about the latest research on promoting health and preventing disease from:
• The Power of Superfoods
• Nutrients to Fight Shanghai’s environmental toxins”

Sounds fascinating. I’ll be there.

More later.

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