Two-year-old Rou Rou (alias) cries exhaustedly if strangers look at her. Unlike a shy baby girl, Rou, whose body, except for her belly, is covered with blackened skin tries to stay out of the sight of others, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on November 11.
Rou’s mother is Zhou Huaqiong, who previously worked at the Huizhou Xianjin battery manufacturing factory in south China’s Guangdong Province. Zhou was four-month pregnant when a spate of women at the factory fell ill.
Zhou was lucky. At least she lived. Her workmate, 21-year-old Fu Hongqin from southwest Sichuan Province, wasn’t so lucky. She died of kidney failure in her hometown in January 2006, two years after she was diagnosed with cadmium poisoning. The cadmium poisoning also caused Fu’s bones to gradually dissolve inside her body.
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