Nearly 20 million Chinese live with high risk of arsenic contamination in water supplies

(http://www.theguardian.com) A recently published study shows that nearly 20 million people in China live in areas at high risk of arsenic contamination in their water supplies.

The Chinese government has labeled arsenic contamination as one of the country's "most important endemic diseases," due to its chronic side effects, which includes cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. China has been in the process of testing wells for arsenic contamination, but this has taken longer than expected and could take decades to complete. To remedy this issue, researchers developed a computer model capable of predicting which areas have the greatest risk of contamination.

The model found 14.7 million people at risk of water contaminated with levels higher than the World Health Organization's recommended limit of 10 micrograms per liter. Almost 6 million people are at risk of water contaminated with five times the recommended limit.

The researchers used publicly-available information, population data and tests performed by the Chinese government, as well as their own testing data, to create the model.

Luis Rodriguez-Lado of University Santiago de Compostela in Spain and the lead author of the work, said: "The foundation of our model was based on arsenic measures in 2,600 villages in six provinces in China."

Another researcher, China Medical University dean Dr. Guifan Sun, says that without his team's work, this information could have taken more than 20 years to become available. "This was the reason for the urgency. We will give advice to the government on how to test these predicted areas."