More efforts needed to protect public health

Public health issues regularly make headlines in China today, with each reported case of children sickened by pollution resulting in renewed calls for tougher prevention measures.

In April, hundreds of students at a high school in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, were found to have "abnormal" blood readings after moving to a new campus, which reportedly was built on land previously occupied by a chemical plant.

Residents in rural towns and villages with higher-than-average cancer rates also regularly attribute the problem to the air, water or soil pollution (or all three) caused by nearby industrial activities.