BEIJING (Reuters) - Birth defects in Chinese infants have soared nearly 40 percent since 2001, a government report said, and officials linked the rise to China's worsening environmental degradation.
... China's coal-rich northern province of Shanxi, a centre of noxious emissions from large-scale coke and chemical industries, had the highest rate of defects, Xinhua news agency said in a report carried by Monday's Beijing News.
"The incidence of birth defects is related to environmental pollution," the newspaper quoted An Huanxiao, director of Shanxi's provincial family planning agency, as saying. Click: China birth defects soar due to pollution: report
Those are alarming statistics in the article, a 40% jump in birth defects in 6 years. What I find just as alarming is the rather generous amount of air pollution they are sharing, as demonstrated after the click in this NASA Earth Observatory picture - Click: Pollution over China Blows out to Sea
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