Its active ingredient is arsenic salt, which is derived from arsenic stone, not unique to China but long used to treat fevers, depression and arthritis.
Among those: eliminating polyvinyl chloride and brominated flame retardants from all its products by 2009, and removing mercury and arsenic from its products' displays.
Alcan, a Canadian aluminium company, says it will help villagers in Bangladesh to remove arsenic from their water supplies.
Scientists have just unveiled an easy-to-use, inexpensive method for removing arsenic from contaminated drinking water using chopped up bits of discarded plastic bottles.
FORBES: "Plastic Bottle" Filters Can Help Millions Poisoned by Arsenic-Contaminated Water
Developed to remove arsenic from soldiers gassed during World War I, the method is used in mainstream medicine for rare cases of acute heavy metal poisoning.
The EPA will decide soon on changing the standards for arsenic by 2000, lowering the acceptable limit of arsenic from 50 micrograms per liter to possibly 10 micrograms per liter.
The skin lesions that come from prolonged exposure to arsenic are already evident on the hands and feet of many villagers.
ECONOMIST: Scientists have offered a solution to the arsenic wells
Before he left office, former President Clinton enacted regulations that called for lowering the arsenic standard from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion.
Quantities of sewage are poured into it daily, 95% of which is untreated, and it is also a depository for industrial effluents, chemicals from farm runoffs and arsenic and fluoride contamination.
Over a decade ago, scientists in Bangladesh discovered that drinking water drawn from wells was contaminated with arsenic.
The Clinton administration changed the standard that had been set in 1942 from 50 parts per billion of arsenic in drinking water to 10 parts per billion.
CNN: House votes in favor of lower drinking water arsenic levels
The judges said that the BGS had made clear from the outset that it had not conducted arsenic tests.
Apart from disfiguring the skin, after two decades arsenic poisoning has a high risk of causing fatal cancer in the lungs, liver, bladder and kidneys.
ECONOMIST: Scientists have offered a solution to the arsenic wells
His lawyers argued that the British Geological Survey (BGS) failed to detect arsenic when it conducted tests on water from deep wells in the 1980s and 1990s.
The water leftover from the extraction process, known as tailings, contains arsenic, mercury, napthenic acids and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
In Bangladesh and West Bengal, the water has anywhere from 300 micrograms per liter to 4, 000 micrograms per liter of arsenic.
These are the first national standards to require use of modern control technologies to reduce mercury, arsenic, lead, hydrochloric acid and other hazardous air pollutants from coal plants.
WHITEHOUSE: Energy and Environment Latest News | The White House
Eating rice once a day can increase arsenic levels in the body by up to 44 percent , according to new research from Consumer Reports.
FORBES: What's in Your Rice? A Lot of Arsenic, Says Consumer Reports
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