Chinese Pm 2.5 Pollution May Be Affecting Sperm Motility, Health - WSJ
Edit. - Kind of bloggy/gossipy post, based on passing remark in government report, but not surprising, if true.
EDIT
The discussion first erupted on Tuesday after a little known publication called the China Business Review ran a headline bound to get attention in a country more obsessed than most with children: “Smog Can Impact Humans’ Reproductive Ability and Immune System.” Below, the newspaper showed a rendering of how dust particles harm different organs in the human body.
Both articles cite a new “green paper” on climate change issued by the China Meteorological Administration and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. As one might expect, the report is mostly concerned with minimizing the carbon footprint of China’s urbanizing population, though it does making a passing mention, on page 248, of the negative effects on human health of air pollution. Particulate matter can “influence reproductive abilities,” it says. While neither the green paper nor the initial China Business Review story offered any data to support their claims, that hardly seemed to matter to the country’s microbloggers, who have long expected the worse from the air they breathe.
A study in July found that air pollution from coal combustion likely cut life expectancy in parts of China by more than five years during the 1990s. This week, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported a doctor saying that an eight-year old girl from the eastern province of Jiangsu had contracted lung cancer from prolonged exposure to harmful particles having lived near a dusty street.
The Wall Street Journal called Beijing’s United Family Healthcare for its take on what doctors should be telling their patients, but the hospital declined comment. “Our (obstetrician and gynecologist) chief refused the interview, because there is no data or document to explain the pollution’s impact to pregnant women,” wrote spokesperson Yafei Zhu.
EDIT
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/11/07/chinas-newest-pollution-concern-ugly-sperm/
