China official gives ridiculous excuse for lead poisoning incident
More than 300 children in a county in Hunan were found to have excessive levels of lead in their bodies.
Was this a sign of heavy metal poisoning? The county government thought so.
On Saturday, it announced a probe into both the owner of a chemical plant and local environmental protection agency.
Lab tests found that the particles collected from a window of a villager's house contained 7,780 micrograms of lead per kg, that's 21 times the standard amount allowed for residential land, shanghaiist.com reported.
But the head of the Dapu government, Mr Su Genlin, is not entirely convinced that the plant is at fault.
Instead, the Chinese official contends that the horrible habit of biting pencils is to blame, state media reported on Monday.
We're not sure where he got his information from, but the “lead” in pencils is actually graphite.
Sources: Reuters, shanghaiist.com, Global Times
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now