Flint, MI crisis: a cautionary tale about America?s water supply

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Environmen...-cautionary-tale-about-America-s-water-supply


Flint crisis: a cautionary tale about America?s water supply
Paths to progress
The lead poisoning crisis in Flint, Mich., demonstrates the consequences of quick fixes in the face of financial woes, experts say. But it also is exposing a greater need in cities around the country.
By Jessica Mendoza, Staff writer January 13, 2016

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) mobilized the National Guard late Tuesday to help dispense filters and water bottles in Flint, as state and local officials struggle to deal with the city?s water crisis a year and a half after it began.

The order is meant to boost aid to Flint residents, whose tap water was tainted with lead after the city changed its source of drinking water in 2014 in an effort to cut costs. On Oct. 1 ? more than a year after the switch and after test results revealed that children had elevated levels of lead in their systems ? Michigan officials declared a public health emergency...

 

[Emily]

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1601013

Perspective
[h=1]Lead Contamination in Flint ? An Abject Failure to Protect Public Health[/h] David C. Bellinger, Ph.D.
February 10, 2016DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1601013

....

It is notable that the Flint contamination might never have been brought to light had citizens not persisted in efforts to force local, state, and federal officials to take action. This is not the way public health protection should work, and the crisis appears to reflect failures at every level of government. In 1969, environmentalist Ren? Dubos warned that the problem of childhood lead poisoning ?is so well-defined, so neatly packaged, with both causes and cures known, that if we don?t eliminate this social crime, our society deserves all the disasters that have been forecast for it.?5 We have yet to fully respond to Dubos?s admonition.
We have the knowledge required to redress this social crime. We know where the lead is, how people are exposed, and how it damages health. What we lack is the political will to do what should be done.

It's a moral failure. Providing safe drinking water doesn't make anyone money.

 

[Shiloh]

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180205151557.htm

New information about the Flint water crisis

Date:
February 5, 2018
Source:
Wayne State University - Office of the Vice President for Research
Summary:
The Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership research team found that the majority of Legionnaires' disease cases that occurred during the 2014-15 outbreak in Genesee County, Mich., can be attributed to the change in of the City of Flint's drinking water supply to the Flint River. The researchers also found that the specific strain of Legionella isolated from Flint residences as part of FACHEP's sampling in 2016 is not readily detected by common diagnostic tests for Legionella...