Monday, January 25, 2016

The Flint Water Crisis : All of Flint's children should be assumed to have been exposed to lead

I have already heard people trying to downplay the Flint water crisis by saying that the lead poisoning wasn't as bad as reported or that the city is responsible for this because it did not manage its budget properly. When Flint changed its water supply in April 2014 under an emergency manager who was brought in to resolve the financial crisis in the city, the people in charge decided to save a little money by not adding phosphate to the Flint River water. Phosphate prevents the corrosion of old pipes that otherwise leach lead into the water supply and would have prevented the disaster that followed.

A recent article in the Detroit Free Press "All Flint's children must be treated as exposed to lead" by Kristi Tanner, 1/16/16, includes these recommendations to the State: 
 
"In recommendations to the state on Monday, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha said all kids under the age of 6 should be treated with some kind of prevention actions.

"Eden Wells, the state's chief medical executive, said Monday that all children who drank the city's water since April 2014 have been exposed to lead. 'It is important when we think about a public health perspective that we consider the whole cohort ... exposed to the drinking water, especially 6 years and under since April 2014,  as exposed, regardless of what their blood level is on Jan. 11.'


"The state's most recent report, based on  tests conducted between October and December 2015, shows that 43 people — only a small portion of the number exposed — had elevated blood lead levels. That's because these tests measure only the amount of lead in a person's blood, which decreases after about 30 days, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."


See video here from CNN.

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