Rights group accuses China of masking lead poisoning cases

Jun 15, 2011, 8:36 GMT

Beijing - Chinese officials are hiding the extent of lead poisoning in four badly affected provinces by limiting testing and withholding information, a rights group said Wednesday.

Despite allowing state media to report some of the worst incidents in recent years, officials were 'restricting access to lead testing, withholding and falsifying test results, and denying children treatment,' US-based Human Rights Watch said.

'Such actions violate Chinese law and condemn hundreds of thousands of children to permanent mental and physical disabilities,' the group said in a report after research in heavily polluted villages in the provinces of Henan, Hunan, Yunnan and Shaanxi.

Although local governments implemented stricter regulations and 'sporadic enforcement targeting polluting factories,' they ignored the long-term consequences for a 'generation of children continuously exposed to life-threatening levels of lead,' it said.

'Children with dangerously high levels of lead in their blood are being refused treatment and returned home to contaminated houses in polluted villages,' said Joe Amon, the group's health and human rights director.

'Parents, journalists, and community activists who dare to speak out about lead are detained, harassed, and ultimately silenced,' Amon said. He said there were 'hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of children who face the dire consequences of the government's neglect.'

'It's not enough to penalize factory owners and officials after a village is severely contaminated,' Amon said. 'The government needs to provide treatment and to make sure that children aren't immediately re-exposed to toxic levels of lead.'

State media reported last week that more than 600 people, including 103 children, were suffering from lead poisoning in the eastern province of Zhejiang.

Tests found that 26 adults and 103 children in Zhejiang's Yangxunqiao town had 'severe' poisoning - defined as more than 600 micrograms of lead per litre of blood for an adult, and more than 250 micrograms for a child.

The natural level of lead in the blood is zero, and negative effects can occur in children whose blood has as little as than 10 micrograms of lead per litre, according to the World Health Organization.

In another case in Zhejiang last month, 74 people were detained and production suspended at all battery factories after dozens of people were poisoned by lead and cadmium.