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One Tenth of China's Farmland Polluted With Heavy Metals

eldavojohn writes "A report form China's Environmental Ministry reveals that one tenth of China's 1.22 million square kilometers of farmland are polluted with heavy metals and other toxins. The AFP lists 'lead, mercury and cancer-causing cadmium' and points to the rapid pace of China's industrialization as well as factories and their operators flouting regulations and laws. Cheap batteries and lead refineries are slowly turning China into a land where whole villages are poisoned (11 incidents so far this year). According to Human Rights Watch the government's response to this scourge is laughable. The poisoned are denied treatment and China's Environmental Ministry offers no possible help: 'The report documents how local authorities in contaminated areas have imposed arbitrary limits on access to blood lead testing, for example by permitting only people living within a small radius of a factory to be tested. When tests are conducted, results have often been contradictory or have been withheld from victims and their families. And children with elevated blood lead levels who require treatment according to national guidelines have been denied care or told simply to eat certain foods, including apples, garlic, milk, and eggs.'"

2 of 412 comments (clear)

  1. Stupid assesment of why people buy by SuperKendall · · Score: 1, Troll

    They buy that bottled water because some MARKEDROIDS told them to buy it!

    Sorry, no. Most bottled water sold is large generically branded stuff.

    The reason why people buy the bottled water is convenience. It's packaged to easily take with you. It has nothing to do with marketing, it's that it's easier than buying and filling your own leak-proof containers. Heck, even if you did buy and fill your own conners it turned out you were probably worse off with the BHP scare (though that was overdone).

    Lots of what people buy has very little to do with marketing in the abstract - as in, marketing might partially determined what bottle of water they are going to buy but not if they are going to get bottled water or not.

    People don't investigate much because by and large the stuff is safe. The crap in bottled water you are trying to scare us all with is in such trace amounts it hardly matters. Also how do you know even with what they found in the bottled water it's still not better than some local tap water?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  2. Re:Why vote for Republicans by Quila · · Score: 1, Troll

    I think it's hilarious that you believe that we've been bankrupted by Democrats.

    Much of it can be traced back to FDR. That's when the big spending really got in gear.

    Who exploded the deficit in the 1980s in an attempt to out-spend the Soviet Union?

    And we won because of it. We had been spending lavishly over the prior few decades maintaining the Cold War, and it needed to end. Afterwards, Bush Sr. started closing down unneeded Cold War bases, expensive Cold War programs were canceled.

    Who inherited government surpluses at the turn of the century and then instead of paying down the debt, passed trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts?

    First, there's no way I'm going to defend RINO (Republican In Name Only) Bush. That's why I said Republicans haven't been doing much better.

    But there never was a Clinton surplus. It was entirely illusory, with accounting tricks. The national deficit never even dropped to zero during one of his budgets, the national debt never decreased. The government covered its deficit by borrowing from Social Security income, which was pretty fat at the time due to the dot com bubble.

    Who led us into a controversial and optional multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq? (Some might ask the same thing about Afghanistan.)

    There's Bush again. Although Afghanistan might not have even been necessary had Clinton been doing his job. He was having too much fun lobbing the occasional Tomahawk at Saddam for no real reason, and bombing Chinese embassies in the Balkans, to accept Bin Laden on a platter from the Sudanese.

    Who passed and signed Medicare Part D (the prescription drug program) without even attempting to pay for it?

    And Bush yet again. We can go down a big list of his failures where there might as well have been a Democrat in office. Illegal immigration? Check. Further centralizing control of our schools at the federal level? Check. Check, check, check...

    That's why we have to make sure we don't get another Bush. Cain looked good, but now that he's the frontrunner suddenly he's getting the Clarence Thomas treatment.

    The things that you are told on talk / shortwave radio, in church, on Fox News, etc. are not always true.

    Guess what, what the various Soros-funded machines tell you is usually not true, neither is what the DNC or the current administration tells you.