A survey, such as that undertaken by the Beijing Yilian Legal Aid and Study Center of Labor, may be considered less than representative or scientific by some standards, and the agency that conducted it judged un-authoritative - after all, a non-governmental organization committed to research on occupational diseases and legal assistance for the victims has obvious access problems.

And a survey that generated only 172 valid responses may invite questions about its conclusions given that there are about 16 million workplaces with health-damaging potential where 200 million or so of our compatriots are toiling for their daily bread.

But, let us not be so rash as to hastily dismiss this third-party report. It is an admirable unofficial attempt to reveal the overall picture of the conditions that exist in the nation's toxic or health-threatening workplaces.