China's self-inflicted horror movie

Not that it's gonna be any comfort to anyone... but the lion's share of people being poisoned by China's "economic miracle" are the Chinese people themselves.

A Chinese government report says the number of birth defects in the country has risen by almost forty percent since 2001. Officials are linking the rise to China's worsening environmental degradation, as Claudia Blume reports from Hong Kong.

China's national population and family planning commission says that out of the 20 million babies born in the country each year, up to 1.2 million are born with defects.

We're talking 6 percent of all births... now that oughta be scarin' the fried dumplings outta somebody over there.

Government statistics do not specify the nature of the problems these children suffer from. But they show that only twenty to thirty percent of the affected infants can be cured. The remaining children die shortly after they are born or suffer their whole life from deformities.

China's northern province of Shanxi has the highest rate of defects. It is also where large coalmines and chemical industries heavily pollute the environment. Officials say there is a link between the increase in defects and environmental factors.

Talk about "live and don't learn."

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