ABSTRACT
Frequent media coverage of China's 'cancer villages' has aroused public concern as well as the grave attention of leaders of the Party and the government. In order to understand this coverage and information on cancer villages, it is important to be as objective as possible in analyzing causes and judging the situation. China's incidence of cancer continues to rise, as do mortality rates from cancer. This chapter presents a research report that takes China's increasing incidence of cancer, increasing mortality rates, and factors influencing those facts, as its starting point. It analyzes the distribution of cancer villages as reported in the media, and also presents opinions on how to understand the phenomenon as well as how to deal with it. Environmental pollution has created much greater incidence of cancer in certain villages, mostly from drinking untreated wastewater that was discharged by enterprises at locations upstream from drinking water sources, which contaminated the water.
