Poison in home decoration supplies kills 300,000 children a year

More than 300,000 children die each year on the mainland from various illnesses after being exposed to poisonous chemicals used in home and building decoration materials, health experts said yesterday.

Song Guangsheng, director of the China Indoors Environment Centre, said the key culprits are formaldehyde, used throughout building supplies, benzene in paint and radioactive elements in ceramic tiles.

Children are particularly susceptible to the poisons, according to medical experts.

In sufficient quantities, the pollutants cause blood diseases, asthma, heart disease and affect children's intelligence levels, Mr Song said.

In a widely publicised case in 2001, a baby was born in Beijing without a stomach. The child's parents were healthy, and they had already had a healthy child. An investigation revealed that the father was a painter and decorator and that the couple had moved into a newly decorated home when the woman was pregnant. It found the chemicals in the paints had led to the child's abnormality.

Zang Yan, a physician at Beijing Children's Hospital, said their research had found that more than 90 per cent of all children admitted to the hospital with a blood disease lived in homes that had been decorated within the previous six months.