Chemical in home renovations linked to child leukaemia, lymphoma cases in China; more than 70 per cent come from homes recently renovated, doctor says
- Formaldehyde, widely used in building materials and furniture, suspected by doctor as cause of rising admissions of children with blood cancers at top hospital
- Children at the hospital in Sichuan require years of treatment that can leave families deep in debt; only 70 per cent will make a full recovery
There are two to three children to a room in the children’s oncology ward at Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital in southwest China. The place is scattered with toys and the laughter of the young patients, some of them bald from chemotherapy, can be heard along with the din from a TV.
Forty children are patients in the ward, and of these, 90 per cent are suffering from leukaemia or lymphoma blood cancers, says Zhou Chenyan, deputy director of the hospital’s paediatrics department.
The treatment for both conditions is basically the same, Zhou explains, usually requiring punishing bouts of chemotherapy and sometimes radiotherapy. While a combination of factors is likely to blame for their illness, Zhou is certain she has identified a major cause – home renovations. “More than 70 per cent of my patients from Sichuan come from homes that have recently been renovated,” she says.
Just as smoking is heavily linked to lung cancer, Zhou believes that chemicals used in building and decorating materials are “leading factors for leukaemia” here. More specifically, she points to one chemical commonly used in these home makeovers – formaldehyde.
Formaldehyde is a colourless, odourless chemical used in glues and resins in building materials such as fibreboard. It is widely considered to be a carcinogen and has been linked in studies to various forms of blood cancer.