China’s “Cancer Villages” Bear Witness to Economic Boom
September 19th, 2009Becky runs a food buying co-op. Both of the “organic” product wholesalers she deals with only sell products like beans, sunflower seeds and peanuts from China. The non-Chinese rice costs 3x to 4x more than the Chinese rice. Obviously, we consume no food from China, regardless of the fact that it’s certified organic.
Now, if this is what we’re dealing with, as batshit insane, lunatic fringe food extremists, what is the average person eating??? The New Zealand government’s lack of a country-of-origin requirement on products (especially food products) is a national disgrace. That the vast majority of people don’t care about this is a different matter. For the tiny fraction of kiwis who do, assume that “Packaged in Auckland” means “Product of China.”
Just be aware of the fact that A LOT of companies are using food products from China, including companies that purport to sell organic food. When buying food, we attempt to buy only whole, unprocessed foods and we don’t buy anything that doesn’t state the country of origin.
Via: Reuters:
One needs to look no further then the river that runs through Shangba to understand the extent of the heavy metals pollution that experts say has turned the hamlets in this region of southern China into cancer villages.
The river’s flow ranges from murky white to a bright shade of orange and the waters are so viscous that they barely ripple in the breeze. In Shangba, the river brings death, not sustenance.
“All the fish died, even chickens and ducks that drank from the river died. If you put your leg in the water, you’ll get rashes and a terrible itch,” said He Shuncai, a 34-year-old rice farmer who has lived in Shangba all his life.
“Last year alone, six people in our village died from cancer and they were in their 30s and 40s.”
Cancer casts a shadow over the villages in this region of China in southern Guangdong province, nestled among farmland contaminated by heavy metals used to make batteries, computer parts and other electronics devices.
Every year, an estimated 460,000 people die prematurely in China due to exposure to air and water pollution, according to a 2007 World Bank study.
Yun Yaoshun’s two granddaughters died at the ages of 12 and 18, succumbing to kidney and stomach cancer even though these types of cancers rarely affect children. The World Health Organization has suggested that the high rate of such digestive cancers are due to the ingestion of polluted water.
“It’s because of Daboshan and the dirty water,” said the 82-year-old grandmother. “The girls were always playing in the river, even our well water is contaminated,” Yun told Reuters during a visit to the village.
The river where the children played stretches from the bottom of the Daboshan mine, owned by state-owned Guangdong Dabaoshan Mining Co Ltd, past the ramshackle family home. Its waters are contaminated by cadmium, lead, indium and zinc and other metals.
The villagers use well water in Shangba for drinking but tests published by BioMed Central in July show that it contains excessive amounts of cadmium, a heavy metal that is a known carcinogen, as well as zinc which in large quantities can damage the liver and lead to cancer.
“China has many ‘cancer villages’ and it is very likely that these increased cases of cancer are due to water pollution,” said Edward Chan, an official with Greenpeace in southern China.
But it’s not just water, the carcinogenic heavy metals are also entering the food chain.
Mounds of tailings from mineral mining are discarded alongside paddy fields throughout the region.
“If you test this rice, it will be toxic but we eat it too, otherwise, we will starve,” said He, the farmer, as he shoveled freshly milled rice into a sack. “Yes, we sell this rice too.”
in NZ, the fact that most people do not have a problem with the lack of requirement to disclose country of origin, even for fresh produce and single-ingredient packaged foods is a reminder of how tame the majority have become. i have had debates with supposedly left-of-center people in NZ who see it as no big deal. when you say, “it’s a scam because consumers are denied important information” they just shrug and say things like “the market will sort it out” or “the food standards agency won’t approve unsafe food, what are you so paranoid for?” informed choice is apparently only important for other stuff…
btw, there was a lot of talk a couple of years ago in Japan of Japanese companies ramping up production of “organic” vegetables in China to import into Japan at a fraction of the cost of similar Japanese produce. it seems to have hit a snag when there was a spate of food safety scares involving very dodgy stuff from China…kind of put consumers off the idea.