Medical experts warn that home decorating and cleaning may be a serious danger to people’s health, particularly to children.

　　Director of the Harbin Shicone Indoor Environment Surveillance Lab Zhao Hongfeng says indoor air pollution can be two or three times as bad as outside.

　　The long-term contact with harmful gases such as benzene and formaldehyde released by home decoration materials may gradually lead to some respiratory problems as well as blood disease like leukemia.

　　Ma Jun, head of the blood disease research and treatment center at the Harbin No. 1 Hospital, says that the provincial capital city currently has the highest incidence of leukemia in children among the major metropolises in China, with about seven in 100,000.

　　In Beijing and Shanghai, the figure is 4.6 per 100,000. The main cause of the leukemia is dimethyl benzene, he says.

　　Children have a much lower immunity than adults, so they can be affected more by the harmful smell released by indoor decoration materials.