By Sharyn Alfonsi
You may remember (click here) the pictures from the water crisis six years ago in Flint, Michigan. Hundreds of angry residents holding up bottles of rust-colored water and demanding answers. Months of protests were waved off by officials who denied anything was wrong. The turning point came when a local pediatrician found conclusive proof that the children of Flint were being exposed to high levels of lead in their water and prompted the state to declare an emergency. Now, that same doctor is working to solve a mystery that still worries parents in Flint: what lasting damage did the water do to their kids? As we first reported in March, her initial findings were worse than she feared. But we begin with the legacy of Flint's water crisis....
...In January of 2019, she launched the Flint registry, the first comprehensive look at the thousands of kids exposed to lead in Flint. The goal of the federal and state-funded program is to track the health of those kids and get them the help they need.
The registry refers hundreds of kids to specialists who conduct 8 hours of neuro-psychological assessments of their behavior and development.
Dr. Mona shared her preliminary findings with 60 Minutes.
Before the crisis, about 15% of the kids in Flint required special education services. But of the 174 children who went through the extensive neuro-exams, specialists determined that 80% will require help for a language, learning or intellectual disorder....
...Dr. Manish Arora: And just like growth rings in trees, every day a tooth forms a ring. And anything that we're exposed to in our diet, what we eat, what we breathe, what we drink gets trapped in those growth rings.
A laser cuts through the tooth to analyze whether lead is embedded in the growth rings of teeth. Dr. Mona has sent teeth from 49 Flint kids to be analyzed. This was a scan on the tooth of a child who was 6 months old when the water source switched in Flint.
Dr. Manish Arora: As we hit that six month mark where the--
Sharyn Alfonsi: Oh, my gosh--
Dr. Manish Arora: --water-- the water supply was change, you can see how--
Sharyn Alfonsi: Look at that.
Dr. Manish Arora: You can see how the lead levels go up and then they just keep-- keep going up as more and more lead's entering the body.
Sharyn Alfonsi: It shoots straight up.
Dr. Manish Arora: Exactly.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Wow.
For the first time, researchers can pinpoint to the day, even before birth, when a child was exposed to lead from the water and at what levels. Those early years are a critical time for brain development....
June 15, 2020By Steve Carmody
Over the past three months (click here) Flint has restored water service to hundreds of homes.
Mayor Sheldon Neeley ordered the city to start reconnecting water service to occupied homes on March 12, a few weeks before Governor Gretchen Whitmer ordered all Michigan cities to end water shutoffs and restore service.
The city claims it has restored water service to more than 500 homes since then. City officials stress those getting reconnected to the system must still pay for the water they use.
Flint and Genesee County are among the parts of Michigan hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
Access to clean water for hand washing is seen as a key to preventing the spread of the disease....
