Brain Damage Feared in Lead Smelter Emissions
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About 250 children sickened by emissions from a lead smelter in western China remain in hospital weeks after the mass poisoning case was uncovered, and at least four are likely to suffer permanent brain damage, state media said today.
A top Chinese environmental official blamed local authorities for allowing the factory to emit 800 times the acceptable levels of the heavy metal.
Four of the children from Hui county in Gansu province have more than 450 milligrams of lead per liter of blood -- a level that usually results in brain damage, the official New China News Agency said.
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