Decades of rapid economic growth have brought China increased wealth, longer lives, and lower infant mortality rates — and spectacular environmental problems. The tiny village of Dragon Range tells the story writ small. In the 1960s, the rural town welcomed nearby factories because the workers there purchased their crops; four decades later, Dragon Range is known throughout China as “Cancer Village.” The environmental problems — the town’s soil and crops contain levels of arsenic and lead that far exceed safety standards — are complicated by regulatory foot-dragging, media censorship, withholding of information, and, some fear, diversion of monies intended to help residents relocate. Fifty-nine of 154 people who lived in the town in 1974 have died; 36 of those deaths were caused by cancer.
