Do You Suffer From Chinese Expatitis? – China Health

The Shui Di (水滴) Association for Health and Development is a non-profit organization that has been created in order to assist the Chinese immigrant population living in the city of Barcelona and its metropolitan area.

Lung cancer is the most common cancer in China. Deaths from this typically fatal disease have shot up nearly fivefold since the 1970s. In China's rapidly growing cities, like Shanghai and Beijing, where particulates in the air are often four times higher than in New York City, nearly 30 percent of cancer deaths are from lung cancer.

"In China the birth defect rate has jumped from 8.77 per 1,000 in 1996, to 15 per 1,000 in 2010, according to Report on Women and Children’s Health Development published on Sept. 21. Experts attributed the 70.9 percent surge to environmental pollution."

Chen Dejun, 71, lives by himself in shabby thatched cottage on a hill in Shuijiang township, Nanchuan district of southwest China's Chongqing municipality. The short and bony man said he drinks 3 to 3.5 kilograms of gasoline every month, which he buys from a station at the foot of the hill.