Landmark medical study offers first statistical link between pollution and rising cancer deaths

Cancer-related deaths have more than doubled in some areas along the basins of the heavily polluted Huai River in the past three decades, according to the first official study by mainland medical experts confirming a link between rising cancer rates and heavy pollution.

In Shenqiu county, Henan, the mortality rate from liver cancer increased more than fivefold between 1973 and 2006, according to the joint study by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

The study monitored 14 counties in four provinces - Anhui, Shandong, Jiangsu and Henan - along the Huai and its tributaries since 1973, when the cancer mortality rate in most of those places was less than the national average.

But three decades of unbridled economic growth have not only turned the Huai into one of the most polluted rivers in the country, they have also created "cancer villages" with cancer death rates above the national average, according to data compiled by the study.

"In most of the monitored counties, the death rate from cancer has increased by more than 20 per cent - the average national growth over the period. Several counties recorded an alarming surge of more than 100 per cent," the study says.

Malignant tumours of the stomach, liver and oesophagus were the most common types of deadly cancer reported, according to the findings.