24 children in Chinese village hospitalized for lead poisoning from factories ac

..BEIJING, China – Twenty-four children, aged between nine months and 16 years old, have been hospitalized for lead poisoning caused by battery factories in their east China village, state media said, marking the latest in a string of battery-related poisonings in recent years.

The official Xinhua News Agency said late Wednesday that local authorities had shut two battery factories in Anhui province’s Huaining county after tests found that at least 200 local children had elevated lead levels, with 24 of them requiring hospitalization.

Xinhua said the factories lie just across the street from homes despite regulations that say battery plants cannot be within a 1,600 foot (500-meter) radius of residential communities. It did not say when the factories started operating, or what kind of batteries the factories produced.

The report did not pinpoint how the children were exposed, but battery factories can pollute the air and soil with their emissions.

China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of lead, a key component in the lead-acid batteries needed for the growing number of cars and electric bikes in the country. New cases of lead poisoning regularly pop up around the country, underscoring the toll pollution is taking on the health of rural Chinese.

“My son is now very cranky and restless. He yells a lot,” Xinhua quoted Huang Dazhai, the father of a 5-year-old boy that was found to have 330.9 micrograms of lead per litre of blood, as saying. Just 100 micrograms per litre is enough to impair brain development in children.

…

MY QUESTION IS SHOULDN’T WE BAN DOLLAR STORES AND ALL PLASTIC TOYS MADE IN CHINA UNTIL THEY CAN STAMP IT WITH A STICKER “THIS TOY DID NOT COMPROMISE THE HEALTH OF ANY CHINESE CHILD”????