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A disease in which limbs swell tends to affect the poorest farmers in remote regions of China, preventing them from working, writes CLIFFORD COONANin Beijing

IT’S A strange, terrible and puzzling disease that tends to affect the poorest farmers in the most desolate parts of China, including the Tibetan plateau and Shaanxi province, causing swelling of the elbows, knees, wrists and ankles, slowing the growth of limbs and causing dwarfism in the worst cases.