Please click here to read the 7-part series “American Imports, Chinese Deaths” – A Salt Lake Tribune Special Report:
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 that 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?”
[Image source: extras.sltrib.com]
