A shocking news report that indoor air pollution kills 2.2 million young people in China every year, including one million under-fives, was yesterday disowned by its supposed sources. But not before it had been published by most major domestic news outlets.

The May 16 news report from the China News Service claimed the figure appeared in a report issued by an organization called the Health Guidance Center for Youth – said to be part of the China Standardization Committee.

But journalists from Xinhua and China.org.cn who followed up the story were told by the China Standardization Committee that there is no such organization as the Health Guidance Center for Youth.

According to the China News Service story, the figures were released to journalists at a press conference organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Health, the Chinese Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, and the China Health Care Association.

Yesterday a spokeswoman from the CDC press office told China.org.cn, "There was no CDC press conference on May 16. But one of our institutes organized a product promotion meeting."

When pressed, the spokeswoman added that the CDC Environment Institute had held the meeting to promote an air filter that removes formaldehyde pollution. But she insisted that "no figures relating to indoor air pollution were released at the conference."

When China.org.cn contacted the CDC Environment Institute, a spokeswoman said "The author of the news story may have quoted inaccurate online statistics," adding that "numbers like this were doing the rounds online several years ago, but they were definitely not released at the May 16 conference." She said the reporter should contact higher-level departments such as the Ministry of Health.

But the Public Health media department refused to comment on the issue.

Journalists from China.org.cn repeatedly tried to contact the journalist who wrote the initial China News Service story, but his mobile phone was continually powered off. So the status of the shadowy "Health Guidance Center for Youth" and its elusive report remain obscure.

There are still very few details of who attended the "product promotion conference," or how and where the new air filter will be manufactured and marketed.

China News Service eventually published a short item saying a firm called Beijing Haimanpu Environmental Protection Science and Technology Company Ltd., had written to apologize for releasing “data our company had not checked.” China.org.cn has no information regarding links between this firm and the CDC Environment Institute.

The alleged figure of 2.2 million juvenile deaths from indoor air pollution seems inherently implausible given that the total number of deaths from all causes in China in 2009 was 9.43 million. It would mean between a fifth and a quarter of total deaths are attributable to this single cause, including an extraordinarily high number of juvenile deaths.

Song Guangsheng, director of the China Indoor Environment Quality Inspection Center pointed out that, worldwide, only 1.6 million people die from respiratory diseases caused by indoor air pollution.

Despite the statistical improbability of the story, most domestic news outlets readily reprinted it, regarding the China News Service as an authoritative source. Major international news outlets were more discriminating; only Agence France Presse (AFP) and Voice of America reproduced it. AFP has since published a clarification that amounts to a retraction.

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