Cancer Villages

Editor,

SBS dateline documentary 'china's cancer villages' (screened on 15/5) gives an illuminating insight into the nature and extent of the toxic costs of china's great economic leap forward in recent times.

We learn that whole remote settlements have been ravaged by cancer causing industrial waste such as chromium dump contaminating crop fields and rivers.
I have no doubt this is the kind of documentary evidence dedicated china watchers like Donald Singh of Beijing seek out to gain a more balanced and objective understanding of what is happening in today's china.

But Communist China is not unique in its relentless pursuit of caitalist development which historically and traditionally took no real cognizance of the harm to the environment and the health and well-being of the people. western european countries and even communist Soviet Union went down the same path.
But small pacific island countries need not go the same route and put in serious harm its fragile natural environment and small population.

The documentary documents the death of a 15 year old boy who had developed cancer by expose to the toxic water in his village. we are told there are "500 similar cases" and the incidence of cancer cases is "up to four times the global average".

This is a high price to pay for progress even for a big country like China.
We must learn from the Chinese experience what not to do in the name of economic progress.

Yours sincerely,
Rajend Naidu
Sydney

ENDS

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