Lead poisoning in China: a nightmare from industrialisation

Recently, new cases of lead poisoning have been reported in China. In early January, 2011, 228 children in Huaining County, Anhui Province, had blood lead concentrations higher than 100 μg/L, the acceptable level in China and many other countries. 23 of the children with blood lead higher than 250 μg/L had to be sent to a hospital for treatment. The local authority then shut down a factory making batteries that was the source of pollution. From 2009 until now, lead poisoning in several provinces of China has aff ected more than 4000 children (fi gure). In Jiyuan City, Henan Province, blood samples from 1008 of 3108 children (32%) living near lead smelters showed lead concentrations higher than 250 μg/L. In August, 2009, the waste discharges from a local smelter caused lead poisoning in 851 of 1016 children in Fengxiang County, Shaanxi Province. More than 170 children had to be admitted to hospital. In the same month, 1354 of 1958 children living near the Wugang Manganese Smelting Plant in Hunan Province had blood lead concentrations higher than 100 μg/L. Both cases sparked riots by local residents. Similar lead poisoning cases also took place in Jiangsu, Fujian, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guangdong Provinces. Children are especially susceptible to chronic lead exposure, with eff ects including physical, cognitive, and neurobehavioural impairment. There is no safe concentration of blood lead below which children are not aff ected. Cases in children are particularly sensitive in China because of the country’s one child per family policy. The number of riots and protests sparked by environmental problems has been escalating at a rate of about 30% per year, according to Shengxian Zhou, the Environmental Protection Minister in China. by providing fi nishing touches—ie, opportunities to optimise one’s repertoire of skills—therefore producing more rounded and marketable young professionals by better equipping students with crosscutting skill sets. Our ongoing experiences with case competitions suggest that longstanding traditions of academic globalhealth programmes that are located exclusively in public health schools might need to give way to more integrated instruction that incorporates competencies and training from several disciplines. Development of synergies within and across professional, vocational, and technical schools will be important to tackle future multidimensional challenges in global health. With the substantial and increased interest in global health among students worldwide, the model of case competitions complements traditional, structured, and specialised higher education. Student teams optimise their combined inventories of diverse, but synergistic, skills and experiences, thus making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Refl ections from past participants suggest that the competition is a more memorable university experience than are obligatory prerequisites for career qualifi cations.