Lancet: 70% of Rice in Southern China contaminated with cadmium...

[NNadir]

...and fatalities have been reported, even though such fatalities are often ignored or covered up.

Meanwhile, chemical pollution is a major threat to both agricultural land and freshwater supplies. ¹⁵ The rapid development of industrial facilities in rural areas, often immediately adjacent to agricultural land, is an escalating food safety problem because fields are being contaminated by industrial wastes such as heavy metals. For instance, soil and water contamination with the heavy metal cadmium can lead to the presence of this toxicant in agricultural products that, when consumed, poses a range of health risks, from renal failure to osteoporosis to increased risk of some cancers.⁶³ Fatal cases of cadmium exposure, through food and environmental routes, have been reported inChina,⁶⁴ and in 2007, results of a survey by Nanjing Agricultural University showed that 10% of rice samples collected from six agricultural regions were tainted with the metal.⁶⁵ A follow-up investigation in 2008 of rice samples collected from markets in southern China showed that the level of cadmium exceeded the state food security standards in 70% of the samplestested.⁶⁶ Another investigation in the coastal region of the Fujian province showed that more than 16% of rice samples exceeded the safety levels for lead, and more than 11% exceeded the levels for cadmium.⁶⁷

Lancet 2013; 381: 2044–53

China is one of the world's largest producers of cadmium and the pollution results from mining and the very active Chinese electronic waste recycling practices. Major cadmium mines are located in Hunan province. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment December 2013, Volume 185, Issue 12, pp 9843-9856

China manufactures Cadmium Telluride based solar cells in Southern China at the Advanced Solar Power Company located in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.

Any cadmium pollution associated with the manufacture of cadmium telluride solar cells, which are also manufactured in the US by First Solar, doesn't count, no matter how many people eat contaminated rice, because it is an element of religious orthodoxy, that cannot be questioned under any circumstances, that solar energy is "green."

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

[democratisphere]

1. Wonder how much of what we eat is killing US?

Since we can't question anything, under any circumstances, who the hell cares! Amen.

[lunasun]

2. +1

[AtheistCrusader]

3. That is bad shit.

You do not want to eat it.

[JDPriestly]

4. Isn't there a way to mine the cadmium without polluting the food supply?

[jtuck004]

5. Oh, there's so much more...

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/18-made-in-china-our-toxic-imported-air-pollution#.UtIYtPjyOsQ

And this problem has only gotten bigger since 2011, as we have pumped up our exports of fuels, and continued our trade deficit, helping them create jobs and boost their economy.

While here I read dollar stores are now getting too expensive for people to shop at...

[Systematic Chaos]

13. Dollar stores got that shit DOWN.

All they've been doing is taking packages of everything, from the harmful processed foods, to rice, beans and produce, and shrinking the package sizes down. But, they make the regular supermarket practice of doing that look like a bunch of rank amateurs in comparison.

It's almost to the point where you may as well just stick to your cheapest and cleanest major supermarket chain. Almost....

[jtuck004]

15. I know. Amazing, isn't it? But when one only has a couple of bucks, and the size at the supermarket

is $3.47, they provide an alternative.

Though now even those times when people had a couple of bucks are disappearing, and even that strategy is feeling the pressure.

[Wilms]

6. That stuff has been around forever.

And you're pinning it on solar power.

Extremely specious post.

[kristopher]

7. Poor Nnadir, his beloved nuclear power is on hard times so this is where he ends up

Last edited Tue Jan 14, 2014, 08:22 PM - Edit history (1)

EPA data sheet:

Cadmium CAS Number: 7440-43-9
What is cadmium?
Cadmium, in its purest form, is a soft silver- white metal that is found naturally in the earth’s crust. However, the most common forms of cadmium found in the environment exist in combinations with other elements. For example, cadmium oxide (a mixture of cadmium and oxygen), cadmium chloride (a combination of cadmium and chlorine), and cadmium sulfide (a mixture of cadmium and sulfur) are commonly found in the environment. Cadmium doesn’t have a distinct taste or smell.

What is cadmium used for?
Most cadmium used in this country is obtained as a by-product (formed while making something else) from smelting (melting) zinc, lead, or copper ores. The cadmium by-product is mostly used in metal plating and to make pigments, batteries, and plastics.

How can cadmium enter and leave your body?
Cadmium can get into your blood stream by eating and drinking cadmium-contaminated food or water and by breathing cadmium- contaminated air.

How can you be exposed to cadmium?
You can be exposed to cadmium in the work place by breathing cadmium-contaminated air. If you work for a battery manufacturer or work in metal soldering or welding, then workplace exposure to cadmium may be greater.

Exposure can also occur by eating foods containing low levels of cadmium. For most of us, the most common source of exposure to cadmium is mainly through eating food, especially shellfish, liver, and kidney meats. Plants absorb or “take up” cadmium from soil, and the fish we eat “take up” cadmium from the water they live in. However, this type of exposure is not of greatest concern.

Cigarette smoke is another source of exposure. Traces of cadmium can be found in tobacco plants. Most people who smoke have about twice as much cadmium in their bodies as nonsmokers.

Breathing cadmium-contaminated air from industry sectors that burn fossil fuels like coal or oil, or that burn municipal wastes is another source of exposure and is the largest source of cadmium releases. Cadmium may also be released to the air from zinc, lead or copper smelters. If you work in or near these major sources of cadmium releases, then your exposure to cadmium may be higher than the average person.

What are the health effects of exposure to cadmium?
Exposure to cadmium can cause a number of harmful health effects. Eating food or drinking water with high levels of cadmium can severely irritate or bother your stomach and cause vomiting and diarrhea. Breathing high doses of cadmium can irritate and damage the lungs and can cause death.

However, the greatest concern is from exposure to lower doses of cadmium over a long period of time. The lower and long-term exposure to cadmium through air or through diet can cause kidney damage. Although the damage is not life-threatening, it can lead to the formation of kidney stones and affect the skeleton, which can be painful and debilitating. Lung damage has also been observed.

The results of some animal studies show that animals given cadmium-contaminated food and water show high blood pressure, iron-poor blood, liver disease, nerve damage or brain damage. Theseeffectshavenotbeen observed in humans.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services determined that cadmium and certain cadmium compounds are probable or suspected carcinogens (substances that cause cancer).

What levels of exposure have resulted in harmful health effects?
In general, the amount of cadmium that will cause health problems will vary depending on: (1) the type of exposure (eating or breathing), (2) the duration of the exposure (short- or long- term), and (3) the form of cadmium (pure cadmium or some combination).

Studies show that humans can experience lung irritation after breathing as little as 1.0 milligrams per cubic meter of air (mg/m3) of cadmium-contaminated air for a short period of time (less than or equal to 14 days).
Breathing 0.01 mg/m3 of cadmium- contaminated air over the long-term (greater than 14 days) has resulted in chronic lung disease and kidney disease in humans.

Humans that eat or drink cadmium- contaminated food and water for a short period of time (less than 14 days) in amounts of 0.05 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day (mg/kg/day) can experience stomach irritation. Long-term exposure (greater than 14 days) in amounts of 0.005 mg/kg/day cause relatively little risk of injury to the kidney or other tissues.
Exposure to cadmium through food is typical for most people but is not a major health concern. This is because the cadmium present in the body from our diet is about 0.0004 mg/kg/day. This figure is about ten times lower than the level of cadmium that causes kidney damage from eating contaminated food.

Where can you get more information?
Contact your state health or environmental department, or:
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Division of Toxicology
1600 Clifton Road N.E., E-29
Atlanta, Georgia 30333

References
1. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). Public Health
Statement for Cadmium. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1989.
2. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). Toxicological Profile for Cadmium. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1993.
3. Reigart, Routt J. and Roberts, James R. Medical University of South Carolina. Recognition and Management of Pesticide Poisonings. Fifth ed. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Pesticide Programs, 1999.

[NNadir]

10. And your point in this cut and paste of an MSDS is what?

Let me guess...

The fact that huge stretches of Chinese agricultural land is contaminated by cadmium is irrelevant because you have lots of other "cut and pastes" that you can do to prove that digging cadmium to make solar cells is "green."

By the way...

Do you have a cut and paste you can offer us on how deaths from cadmium in China compare with deaths from Fukushima's reactors on the whole fucking planet? You know...Fukushima...that event that anti-nukes keep burning oil and coal and gas to tell us all about.

How many Japanese have died from radiation associated with the destroyed reactors exactly?

(A related question, "How many Japanese will die from dangerous fossil fuel induced air pollution this year?&quot

Which has killed more people, cadmium poisoning in China or Fukushima on the whole planet? Which has affected more people? Any idea?


Enquiring minds want to know.

Here's a starting point for finding out about the people who dig cadmium in China so scientifically illiterate bourgeois anti-nukes can tell us all about the wonderful "efficient" solar cells that supposed to save our asses, even though 50 years of cheering, and reams money sucked out of the pockets of those who can least afford it, has not caused the solar scam to produce even one of the 538 exajoules of energy that humanity consumes each year, and has essentially nothing, nothing at all to arrest climate change: Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2013, 10, 5163-5177

It's um, open access, so even a cutting and pasting fool can check out its contents.

Go for it.

[freshwest]

8. I wouldn't pin it all on solar either, but the toxicity of most electronics is disquieting!

True, the heavy metals are a small amount per item, but the effects on the places where they are sent to be recycled and the people that work on them is bad.

I was just watching a short film on garbage cities in China. We've heard about them in India, Africa, Mexico, Latin America and in China. It's appalling that so many people are being exposed to heavy metals that are toxic and there is no regulation.

The 'first world' enjoys the profit and convenience but the 'third world' gets death from working them. There is so much of this waste. My area is doing all it can to recycle, etc. in the best way, but ti's all being sent to some place where people are hurt.

The solution has always been to stop the pollution at the source, but there is too much 'free trade' without any care for people or the world.

.

[NNadir]

9. Yeah. It's b een around forever, but because it's tied to solar power, no one gives a rat's ass...

...about the people affected except, um except....

The world's scientific community is, of course apparently, excepted, from the people who find it specious. A google scholar search on "cadmium" and "China" will produce thousands of hits.

They don't find the pollution around Baotou specious either.

You should write a letter to that journal. They have an impact factor of 36.457 as of this year, and I'm sure that they'll be impressed when a "solar is harmless" advocate writes in to tell them that he's surprised that a journal with an impact factor like that would publish "specious crap" about cadmium and other heavy metals in China because "that stuff has been around forever."

That's probably because concerns about cadmium pollution - by that bunch of irrelevant people called "scientists" - is, in their mind, a huge health problem, and which is why, um, their concerned about conditions at the Baotou lanthanide mines in Inner Mongolia that serve the world's expensive failed wind industry don't count either

However, as I was careful to point out in the opening post, the fact that First Solar and other companies - first solar - using solar cells either manufactured in China or using cadmium mined in China is distributing ton quantities of cadmium all over the United States in the form of magic "solar cells" soaking up money and producing very, very, very, very trivial amounts of energy as a result can't be criticized.

Solar and wind are "magic" and the idiots in the scientific community who are complaining, 50 years into the "solar will save us" miracle that the rate of atmospheric degradation is now at the highest sustained rate ever observed, simply don't get it.

Thank you though, for straightening me out. Don't worry. Be happy. Eventually China's cadmium mines will be closed as we proceed with the solar miracle, which after all, may someday - it hasn't happened yet but we should all maintain our faith - produce one of the 538 exajoules of energy that humanity was consuming as of 2011. I mean, all the cadmium in China, dug up and strewn across the useless California deserts will surely solve all the world's environmental problems.

Have a nice Sunday.

[phantom power]

11. The pollution impact of renewables is on the manufacturing side, and disposal side

However, nobody will give a shit. They look pollution free while they are operating.

[NNadir]

12. The main reason they look so, is that they remain insignificant forms of energy on a global...

...scale.

I think though that in the next few years, these issues will come to the fore.

The primary scientific literature seems to have a lot of papers recently on the subject of how there isn't enough tellurium on the entire planet to keep this cadmium telluride hoax going.

This, of course, is a good thing. It's a big, big, big, big, awful and tragic mistake to be distributing this stuff all over the surface of the earth.

[Systematic Chaos]

14. They'll just make them out of My Little Pony poop.

Teh Broniez is gunna save us!!!