A senior environmental official has refuted a foreign media report that the country removed part of a World Bank report on pollution and health because of concerns over social unrest.

He said the report was not very reliable.

Zhou Jian, deputy minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), said: "It is a very complex issue to analyze the impact of pollution on human health. Without a common scientific methodology in the world, any survey on environment and health is not persuasive."

Even China does not have an authoritative survey, Zhou said.

He was commenting on a report in the Financial Times which said: "Beijing engineered the removal of nearly a third of a World Bank report on pollution in China because of concerns that findings on premature deaths could provoke social unrest."

According to the newspaper, the deleted part referred to about 750,000 people dying prematurely in China each year, mainly from air pollution in the large cities.

"I have read similar reports on environmental and health many times, released by varied research institutes. Every time, the figures are different," Zhou said.

Although there is no reliable research in this field, the Chinese government promises to protect human health from environmental pollution, he said.

The country is making preparations for its first national survey of pollution sources beginning next year, and will take three years. The survey aims at getting an accurate inventory of pollutants.

SEPA and the Ministry of Health have set up a joint system to keep a close watch on the impact on health by pollution.

Zhou attended the release of a report yesterday in Beijing by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on China's environmental performance.

Despite praising China's efforts in controlling pollution and improving the environment, the OECD report stated that China's environment was still a cause for concern.

Half of the cities do not have clean drinking water and more people are suffering from respiratory diseases because of air pollution, the report said.

(China Daily July 18, 2007)