MI DHHS, Stop Lying about Children's Lead Levels from Drinking Flint River Water!
- by: Susan V
- recipient: Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
Too many children in Flint Michigan have had high blood lead levels for years. And a new report says the percentages doubled after Flint’s water source changed to the Flint River. Even more disturbing comes a report that the MI Department of Health and Human Services hid the truth about the increase.
After going through a severe economic decline in the late 20th Century, Flint chose to stop buying water from Detroit and to get its water directly from the Flint River. The switch, made last year, was expected to save $millions. However who knows what the long-term costs will be now that more children are lead poisoned.
Vox says the switch to river water “and the state's insufficient water testing" will cause "irreparable damage," because there are no safe lead levels for human consumption and “the effects of lead poisoning last a lifetime.” Compounding the problem, adds Vox, Flint ignored “months of warnings from activists” that the water wasn’t safe to drink.
Now, news comes from Michigan Radio that an investigation by VA Tech scientists found that MI’s DHHS tried to discredit Hurley Medical Center’s findings that the percentage of kids with elevated lead levels had doubled, even though DHHS knew HMC‘s findings agreed with its own.
Elevated lead levels in children can end up costing the state far more money than the cost of providing them clean water, not to mention the overall decline in health and quality of life victims of untreated lead poisoning can endure.
Insist MI DHHS come clean about Flint's dirty water and take immediate action to prevent any more lead poisoning of the city's children.
To the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services:
Virginia Tech’s report of your department’s misleading the public about the lead level changes since the switch to Flint River Water is alarming news.
It should be not be any news to this department how costly high lead levels in children are to society as a whole, in addition to the high costs to individual children and their families.
Certainly, with the devastating hits on Flint’s economy over the last two decades, the city has had to come up with ways to save costs, but increasing lead levels in the population’s drinking water is unquestionably the wrong approach to resolving Flint’s economic crisis.
If for no other reason, the high crime rate in Flint alone, should give the city concerns about increased lead levels. As researcher Roger D. Masters pointed out years ago, lead and crime are connected, a theory which has gained even more support lately as evidenced by a 2013 report in Mother Jones. This report says the topic of lead removal from homes has been one “of intense study because of the growing body of research linking lead exposure in small children with a whole raft of complications later in life, including lower IQ, hyperactivity, behavioral problems, and learning disabilities."
This impact of high lead exposure on children being basically ignored by Flint and MI DHHS raises an important question, at least where the Department of Health is concerned. Since the department has a phone number for reporting neglect and abuse of children, why shouldn’t the department itself now be reported and investigated for, at the very least, neglect?
We, the undersigned demand that this department stop lying about the increased percentage of children in Flint with elevated lead levels and use its energy to find a solution to this emergency health problem.
Thanks for your time.
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