Speaking of China

Ever wonder who is funding the recent (relatively) industrial and economic reform in China? It's pretty clear they aren't going to be very grateful for it, nor should they be. It doesn't take a super computer to predict the outcome of this particular model.
American Imports, Chinese Deaths: The human cost of doing business
Their lungs shut down, their kidneys fail, they lose fingers, limbs, all so Americans are guaranteed an unfettered flow of cut-rate merchandise.

Meet Wei Chaihua - he's dying of silicosis.

By Loretta Tofani Special to The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 10/21/2007 01:06:01 PM MDT

GUANGZHOU, China - The patients arrive every day in Chinese hospitals with disabling and fatal diseases acquired while making products for America. On the sixth floor of the Guangzhou Occupational Disease and Prevention Hospital, Wei Chaihua, 44, sits on his iron-rail bed, tethered to an oxygen tank. He is dying of the lung disease silicosis, a result of making Char-Broil gas stoves sold in Utah and throughout the U.S. Down the hall, He Yuyun, 36, who for years brushed America's furniture with paint containing benzene and other solvents, receives treatment for myelodysplastic anemia, a precursor to leukemia.
In another room rests Xiang Zhiqing, 39, her hair falling out and her kidneys beginning to fail from prolonged exposure to cadmium, which she placed in batteries sent to the U.S. "Do people in your country handle cadmium while they make batteries?" Xiang asks. "Do they also die from this?" 'Big problem for Americans': With each new report of lead detected on a made-in-China toy, Americans express outrage: These toys could poison children. But Chinese workers making the toys - and countless other products for America - touch and inhale carcinogenic materials every day, all day long. Benzene. Lead. Cadmium. Toluene. Nickel. Mercury. Many are dying. They have fatal occupational diseases.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_7239727

Sunday October 21, 2007 - 08:16pm (PDT)