Area Pediatrician Exposed Flint Water Lead Crisis

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WEST BLOOMFIELD, MI – For weeks this fall, a physician from West Bloomfield studied blood-lead levels in hundreds of Flint children, fighting to have her work acknowledged by skeptical state officials.

This week, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, pediatric residency director at Flint’s Hurley Children’s Hospital,was honored by the Oakland County Board of Commissioners for her dogged pursuit of of the truth.

The award comes as the mayor of Flint has asked for federal emergency relief to deal with a public health crisis that has grabbed national headlines and put pressure on state officials to disclose when they knew water from the Flint River contained unacceptable lead levels.

The financially struggling city turned off the taps to water from Detroit, which gets its supply from Lake Huron, and switched to water from the Flint River in a money-saving move in 2014.

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Almost immediately, the effects of the switch were being felt by Flint’s children, and a study released in September by Hanna-Attisha confirmed their parents’ worst fears. The proportion of children with above-average levels of lead in their blood had nearly doubled since the city began getting its water from the Flint River.

The consequences of lead poisoning are serious and long lasting.

Lead’s trail is virtually invisible, discoverable only through finger-prick blood test or when children begin showing signs of learning disabilities, reduced IQ, behavioral changes, anti-social behavior, anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and a plethora of other neurological and behavioral problems that are thought to be irreversible, according to the World Health Organization.

Hanna-Attisha. a 39-year-old mother of two, began her critical analysis after a late August dinner with friend who is a former Environmental Protection Agency expert, she told The Oakland Press.

Lead is a red-flag word for pediatricians.

“Whenever you hear about lead, you absolutely freak out,” Hanna-Attisha said.

Children whose neurological system are still developing are most affected by lead.

“Lead should never hit the body of a child,” Hanna-Attisha said. “There is no safe level of lead in a child.”

She told The Oakland Press it was disappointing as a physician and scientist to have her findings initially debunked by the state.

“As a physician and scientist, you check and double-check your work. You do everything based on the scientific method: research, design, etc. We were confident in our numbers,” she said. “ … However, when the state comes out after you release your work and tells you that you are ‘an unfortunate researcher’ and that you’re ‘slicing and dicing’ and all this stuff, it makes you second-guess your work. It was jarring.”

The state did ultimately accept the findings, and officials conceded Hanna-Attisha’s findings were consistent with theirs.

“I think they just weren’t looking as closely as we were,” she said. “That whole issue, from the onset, has been deny, deny, deny. Primarily from the (Michigan Department of Environmental Quality) it was ‘there’s no problem, there’s no problem,’” she said.

Many Flint residents complained about the quality of Flint water for months after the switch.

“Unfortunately, it took evidence that children were being poisoned for a lot of things to happen,” Hanna-Attisha said.

For more on the interview with the pediatrician, go to The Oakland Press.