Pollution In China: Is China's Industry Poisoning Its Children

ILL WIND: A young boy wears a mask against pollution in Linfen, China. Preliminary results from a study conducted in Tongliang, China, reveal that children exposed to highly polluted air while in the womb had more changes in their DNA--and a higher risk of developmental problems--than did those whose mothers breathed cleaner air during pregnancy. Peter Parks AFP/Getty Images

A few heaping piles of scrap metal and a rusty coal shed are all that is left of the power plant that until recently squatted like an immense, smoke-belching dragon in the middle of Tongliang, a gray city of 100,000 in south-central China. As we walk toward the shed, a Belgian Shepherd begins barking furiously, jerking its iron chain and baring sharp teeth. A brown-eyed face peeks out from the open doorway--it belongs to a girl in a stained shirt, holding a tabby cat that jumps away to hide under a slab of concrete as we approach. The girl is no more than six or seven years old and appears to be living in the shed with her father, who watches us warily from within.

The delegation of local officials who are taking us on a tour of the site are embarrassed; they want to hustle us along to a nearby office to show us an elaborate scale model of an extravagant (by Tongliang standards) 900-unit housing development planned for the property. But Frederica Perera is intrigued. She strides toward the girl and gives a friendly "ni hao" and a smile. The girl smiles back before retreating back into the shadows with her father.

Children, after all, are why Perera is here. She is looking for connections between air pollution and disease, especially in children who were exposed to pollutants in the womb. The director of Columbia University's Center for Children's Environmental Health, Perera helped to pioneer the field of molecular epidemiology, which applies the tools of molecular analysis to identify genetic and environmental factors that contribute to disease. She and other molecular epidemiologists who focus on environmental links to illness increasingly do much of their work in the developing world, where pollution is so ubiquitous that its complex connections to health can be calibrated even in small study populations. But their conclusions should also apply in places such as the U.S., Europe and Japan, where environmental exposures are subtler and their effects more difficult to measure in small-scale studies.

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Read More About Pollution In China:
:: Beijing Begins Massive Shutdown To Curb Pollution Before Olympics
:: China Pollution: Beijing Bans 1 Million Cars For 2008 Olympics
:: High-Emission Vehicles Banned from Beijing Roads
:: China Increases Its Lead As The World's Biggest Polluter
:: International Olympic Committee Warns Beijing Air Is "A Possible Risk"

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Comments

[KillTheMessenger]

China has become the production facility for OUR lifestyle at OUR prices. The world has simply decided that it is easier and cheaper to export the pollution to Asia than to deal with it at home. And the strategy has worked, in a sense, for both us and China. We are getting cheap goods and the Chinese are racing through the industrialization phase of their history in a quarter of the time it took for Europe and the US. Unfortunately they are not doing it with as much sense as Japan and they will have an enormous cleanup to do before any of this is over. Which they will. Based on their current track record I do trust the Chinese to tackle and successfully turn their pollution crisis around. How long will it take? Probably 20-30 years. And the world has o decide whether they want to help or just sit by idly. I am sure that the Chinese will gladly take low pollution technologies if they are being offered politely.

[barkingcat]

Please correct the spelling of "its" in the headline -- "it's" is the contraction of "it is," not the possessive of it. C'mon HuffPost, you guys can do better...

[Olerist]

Here in the USA we just allow the FDA and EPA to do it for us.

[Harinama]

"Here in the USA we just allow the FDA and EPA to do it for us."

You mean we allow the FDA and EPA to make back room deals with polluters for kickbacks and campaign contributions. However, it's pretty obvious that China has far less pollution controls than here in the US (even with el busho stripping a ton of env. regulations).

Lets hope the Chinese govt. decides to start taking care of their population, or they'll have the largest, sickest population in the world. (after the US of course, where some states have over 30% obesity).