TheNanfang » lung cancer

Guangzhou to Tax Construction Sites emitting too much dust

Natalie Wang — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 23:45:14 +0000

Taxing heavy polluters and coal-fired plants are common solutions to tackling China’s worsening air quality. Guangzhou, however, has opted to focus on a more unusual pollutant – flying dust.

Guangzhou Daily reported on April 17 that the city plans to levy a tax for excessive dust stirred up at construction sites. The policy will be introduced this August as part of Guangdong Province’s new fiscal measures to curb PM 2.5 emissions. The province vowed to lower its annual PM 2.5 concentration 15% by 2017.

Dust particles have become the latest subjects of taxation following research which demonstrated that they constitute 21% of the city’s total PM 2.5 emissions. Dust is a type of particulate matter, and when these particulates measure 2.5 micron or less, they are classified as PM 2.5.

PM 2.5 particulates are small enough to enter the lungs or bloodstream of humans and cause health damage including lung cancer, the leading cause of death in Guangzhou.

In December last year, Guangzhou had 792 ongoing construction projects, and 8 of them were singled out by the city’s environmental protection department for causing flying dust pollution and discharging excessive amounts of dust, the report said.

Compared with a RMB 8500 ($1,370) fine for these infractions, the environmental protection department believed the financial punishment was too lenient. The city has yet to finalize a set of standards for the fines, but according to the report, it will be based on the construction site’s size, its operational period and protection measures taken by its development company.

The department said that any construction site measuring larger than 100,000 square meters should install CCTV cameras to monitor the amount of dust discharged and increase the frequency of spray surrounding roads with water to avoid raising dust.

Several construction sites will be selected to test out the results by August. If successful, the policy will be more broadly implemented by 2016.

Home page: Dongchu Evening Post

Cantonese Speakers The Most Susceptible to Nose and Throat Cancer: Report

Charles Liu — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 07:32:10 +0000

We already know that lung cancer is leading cause of death in Guangzhou, but it turns out air pollution may have nothing to do with the high cancer rates. Instead, a report in the Guangzhou Daily says Cantonese speakers have a higher susceptibility to contracting nose and throat cancer no matter where they live throughout the world. What? Gao mat guai yeh?

The report doesn’t explain exactly why that is, but does paint a bleak picture about cancer in Guangdong. For every five deaths in the province, one is attributed to the disease. Furthermore, statistics show those in southern provinces – particularly Guangdong – are most at risk. The World Health Organization states that 80% of all throat and nose cancer cases world-wide occur in China; in turn, 80% of these take place in the eight southern provinces of China of which, in turn, Guangdong has the highest number of cases.

April 15-21 is National Tumor Prevention Week in China. To promote awareness, data culled from the Guangdong tumor registry in 2009 reveal a much bleaker perspective regarding cancer in the Sunshine Province.

The horrifying highlights include:

The rate of contracting nose and throat cancer by Guangdong residents is five times that of any one else in China.
One in every 10,000 Guangdong residents will get cancer.
The incidence of nose and throat cancer for Guangdong men is one for every 6,230 men.
Guangdong men are 2.5 times more likely to contract it over women,
One out of every 12,500 Guangdong men will die from nose and throat cancer.

The stats are scary, and point to a particular problem down here, but is Cantonese it? What is it about being Cantonese that could possibly be the reason behind this? Is it speaking a tonal language with superfluous tones? Penance for having birthed William Hung to the world? That virgin boy eggs are, in fact, a thing? It’s just not fair.

Detection of cancer within the first five years has a survival rate of 80%. Do yourself a favor: get plenty of rest, catch up on Game of Thrones while taking a warm bath, and go see a doctor to get yourself regularly checked.

Photo: sxgov.cn, Guangzhou Daily

As Air Quality Worsens, Lung Cancer Becomes Leading Cause of Death in Guangzhou

Natalie Wang — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 00:00:38 +0000

Lung cancer has become the number one cause of death in Guangzhou as the city battles its worsening air quality, according to figures released by the Guangzhou Disease Control Center’s tumor monitoring department.

In a report made by Nandu on April 15, breast cancer is the deadliest type of cancer among women, but lung cancer is revealed as the leading cause of deaths for both men and women. Out of the 100,000 cancer patients, 47,000 suffer from lung cancer, the figures showed.

And the situation is not looking any better in the province as a whole. The incidence of cancer in Guangdong is 23.5 percent higher than the national level, while the number of deaths caused by cancer in the province is 7.5 percent higher than the national level, according to the province’s disease control center. To put the figure into perspective, the center said among every five people who die in Guangdong, one is caused by cancer.

The situation in the city of Guangzhou is even grimmer as one in four deaths in the city is attributed to cancer. Every year, the city adds 22,000 new cancer patients, the report said. The city has a population of 8 million people.

The report, however, did not say the causes behind the city’s increasing lung cancer patients. But China’s ex-health minister Chen Zhu had previously stated the country’s smog is responsible for 350,000 premature deaths each year, the South China Morning Post reported.

Home page image: residents in Zhengzhou wear oxygen masks for fresh air.
Photo credit: China News

Lung cancer the leading killer in Guangzhou

Kevin McGeary — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 23:00:40 +0000

The Guangzhou Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that cancer is the leading cause of death in the city, causing 25% of all deaths, Nanfang Daily reports.

Children with cancer are comforted by a charity worker

Of the estimated 11,700 deaths from cancer in Guangzhou each year, the biggest killer is lung cancer, and there are no prizes for guessing why that is.

The chief of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said one in three people in the city was at risk of getting cancer and colon cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer were all on the increase.

Lung cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer, breast cancer and nasopharyngeal cancer account for 54.79% of all malignant tumours.

Cervical cancer has almost doubled while prostate cancer has increased by 95.67%.

Authorities recommend locals take regular exercise, eat well and try not to get too stressed. Good luck with that.

Sufferers are encouraged to maintain a positive frame of mind. However, cancer survivor Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2010 book “Bright Sided” (published in the U.K. as “Smile or Die”) argues the case that positive thinking is hugely overrated.