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Chronic lead poisoning in Kunming?

Tom69 (151 posts) • 0

Just read a quote from the wikipedia site for Kunming: "It has been reported that as many as 60% of the population suffers from chronic lead poisoning due to lack of quality control in the city's plumbing infrastructure; symptoms associated include psychopathy and paranoia." The Chinese language article associated with this quote is from 2009, and singles out Dongchuan, about 200km north of Kunming proper as where numerous children have been found to suffer from lead poisoning: business.sohu.com/20090905/n266479663.shtml

My concern is should we all just brush our teeth with drinking water? I occasionally do this when in Kunming, but perhaps I should be doing it all the time now, after reading these quotes. I don't spend a lot of time in Kunming as my work generally takes me to other parts of the province and other countries in Asia, but nevertheless, this has got me concerned.

Any thoughts?

Silvio DaVinci (282 posts) • 0

I think that chronic lead poisoning comes primarily from ingestion. I recommend not drinking tap water and I think you'll be fine. After all, we still got to take showers right?

Tom69 (151 posts) • 0

Yes, of course; I have never drunk tap water here nor in any other developing countries. My first concern wouldn't even be lead poisoning, but rather, severe stomach complications such as diarrhea. However, when you brush your teeth with tap water, a tiny amount is usually swallowed each time - this is almost unavoidable. When you have a shower, this is not usually the case.

blobbles (958 posts) • 0

I somehow doubt the 15mls of water you swallow twice a day with brushing your teeth is going to expose you to enough lead tainted water to worry about it. Worry more about the diesel fumes or fine particulate matter you breathe in when walking on the street (hell, even just sitting in your house).

I believe the maximum allowed amount (from memory working in an EPA in the West) of lead in water is around 0.1 milligram per litre, assuming 2L of such water is drunk each day, that relates to ingestion of 0.2 mg. If Kunming water had 0.2mg of lead in it for every 30mls (or 0.66% lead) it would likely be so ridiculously polluted you couldn't let it touch your skin. Not saying that it isn't of course!

The quote may be a bit off, I aren't sure I see 6 out of every 10 people as psychopathic or paranoid! I bet it was just someone who wasn't used to China (or had been here too long!) that believed all these people are psychopaths. Not saying they aren't of course!

Silvio DaVinci (282 posts) • 0

Considering people's driving, yup, definitely lead poisoning all over China.

Actually you can also inhale lead. Hence why glass-blowers get tested twice annually for their lead levels.

Peter99 (1246 posts) • 0

Are there any analyzes over the Kunming tap water out there? And how it reacts to boiling.

Most soups, mixian, hunlun - even coffee - is made from it.

Tom69 (151 posts) • 0

@blobbles, true, I shouldn't be particularly concerned in my case - although right now I'm living with a professor friend in an old building, but as I'll be leaving Kunming again soon once I'm back I'll probably find myself in a brand new apartment - a month living in an old building isn't likely to have much effect but yes I do brush my teeth with drinking water now.

I presume that lead piping was used in the old apartments but isn't used anymore in modern ones? Perhaps this is what the author of the article implied - there are still a lot of older apartments and if anyone is likely to be affected by lead plumbing it's those residents of older 6-story apartments, not the newer multistory ones that have gone up over the past decade.

GoK Moderator (5096 posts) • 0

Lead affects many organs and the nervous system. The later is why lead poisoning is a problem especially for children and can potentially lead to learning disorders.
Adults are just loopy anyway.

blobbles (958 posts) • 0

@Tom69, yes more likely lead piping would be used in the past, not to say that its still not used though, its the wild west out there as you know. You would need to do testing on individual taps to get a real test of water quality. Likely water quality is measured in China by the government mostly at point of supply, rather than various points of consumption. China/Kunming has rapidly developed so each section of the city mains would result in differing quality of water depending on what pipes were used and various other factors. It would be analogous to the pressure problem - many areas in Kunming never have pressure problems while many always have pressure problems. Many areas of Kunming likely have very polluted water while many will have reasonably unpolluted compared to the supply.

blobbles (958 posts) • 0

Oh yeah - boiling water will NOT destroy lead content or most other minerals/pollution that exists, it will kill most of the bacterial contaminants. The water would need to be evaporated and re-condensed to water to remove most pollutants such as lead/mercury/arsenic etc. Almost certainly your local mi xian shop does not do this and would use tap water as their source for soups etc. So if you are worried about the high level of lead in your water (which you should be), do not use tap water for your cooking. And when you eat out monitor how much soups etc you are eating because likely they all contain levels of lead elevated above what western governments consider to be healthy.

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