The public health matter of the #FlintWaterCrisis is more than a lead contamination problem….the matter Legionnaires disease mortality and morbidity and the failure of secondary drinking water disinfection in Flint is just as serious.
But first...on the matter of Gov. Rick Snyder “lawyering up”
[Note….I’m having trouble with DK’s WYSIWYG editor not behaving properly with formatting, line and paragraph breaks….in other words it isn’t WYSIWYG what is in the editor box when it is actually published and it is removing paragraph and line breaks after hitting “publish”]
Rick Snyder “Lawyers Up”:
Gov. Rick Snyder thinks he needs criminal and civil defense attorneys and hires them at state taxpayer expense without competitive bidding in the matter of the #FlintWaterCrisis while insisting that he is not going to resign:
Governor Snyder Skunks CNN with $11,000+ Public Records Request Fees
Snyder claims he needs the attorneys to vet emails and documents
to release alleging his administration is transparent, yet Snyder's
state health department demands over $11,000 from CNN to search
for and release state health department public records on one of
the nation's largest Legionnaires Disease outbreaks ever in the
Flint area:
Snyder’s Former Michigan Chief Medical Officer Has Conflicting Interest in Snyder “Task Force” Probe...Claims to Have Been Uninformed of the Entire Matter on His Watch
Snyder defends the choice of Dr. Matthew Davis on Snyder's Flint water task
force doing internal investigation of the #FlintWaterCrisis when Davis was the
chief medical officer of the state health department during the time of the
the Legionnaires Disease outbreak in Flint.
Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich (D-Flint) has objected to Davis’ participation because of conflicting interests.
Governor Snyder is trusting and depending on Dr. Davis to investigate himself and his culpability in failing to call in the Centers for Disease control to investigate the Legionnaires Disease morbidity and mortality in Flint (and health damage from lead exposure) and its causes when Dr. Davis should have been responsible for the medical credibility of the state health department's review, decisionmaking and conclusions....along with missing the warning signs from Flint's previous lapses in secondary drinking water disinfection and jeopardy to Flint residents.
On the matter of developments as the the Legionnaires disease cluster in Flint during his tenure as the state's chief medical officer, Dr. Davis is quoted in the Detroit News article as saying:
“I was not brought in on conversations regarding Legionella or lead that occurred with respect to Flint,” Davis said.
Governor Snyder is thus allowing a person who was the most responsible executive state health official in the state under law on the Flint matter who was either intentionally or unintentionally ignorant of the circumstances of the #FlintWaterCrisis and was both negligent and incurious in carrying out his direct responsibilities to protect the health of Michigan citizens....to investigate, in part, his own negligent role in the entire matter through Snyder's in house investigative task force.
While Matthew Davis, MD, Michigan's chief state medical officer until the end of April, 2015, was abdicating his responsibilities to protect public health in the middle of the Legionnaires disease outbreak in Flint and ongoing lead problems, the Snyder Administration state health department rejected urgent pleas from the Genesee County Health Department seeking U.S. Centers for Disease Control investigation teams to address the Legionnaires disease cluster:
Genesee County health director: Legionnaires' deaths in Flint "could have been avoided"
One of the real heroes in all of this has been the environmental health director of the Genesee County Health Department, Jim Henry, who was on top of the reports of Legionnaires disease coming in from Flint and Genesee County, including from medical facilities in the local community. Both Henry and U.S. EPA Region 5 tipped off U.S. Centers for Disease Control, but the Snyder Administration both blocked the CDC involvement that Henry’s shop requested and chided Henry for notifying CDC, and then failed to notify the public until very recently.
The corrosive water in Flint from has been thought to decrease in chloride residual and lapses in secondary disinfection in Flint’s water supply mains and lines by Dr. Marc Edward’s Flint Water Study:
See the timeline graphic of Legionnaires cases in this Washington Post showing this occurred on Dr. Davis' watch:
Despite Evidence of a Clear Outbreak in Legionnaires Disease, the Snyder Administration Successfully Kept the Centers for Disease Control Out of the State Blocking the Local Health Department’s Request
The Michigan rejection of U.S. CDC expertise and involvement came despite CDC's
ongoing knowledge of the cluster from notice by U.S. EPA Region 5 and Genesee County Health Department:
“We are very concerned about this Legionnaires’ disease outbreak,” Laurel Garrison of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote to Genesee County health officials in an April 27, 2015, e-mail. “It’s very large, one of the largest we know of in the past decade, and community-wide, and in our opinion
and experience it needs a comprehensive investigation.”
The Snyder Administration's current chief medical officer, Dr. Eden Wells, is trying
to blame the Genesee County Health Department for not notifying
the public of the Legionella hazard while the state is still failing to obtain all information necessary to address the outbreak after state officials browbeat the Genesee County Health Department over its notification of the Centers for Disease Control.....notwithstanding all of this the state of Michigan has still failed to collect and document adequate samples for Legionella up to the present:
Dr. Wells is not a full time employee of the state of Michigan as is required by
Michigan law for a chief medical executive....an arrangement tolerated by Governor Snyder, apparently for cost control reasons:
Michigan Finally Informs the Public About the Legionella Outbreak and Mortality/Morbidity Cluster
After this sorry record, the state health department finally acknowledged and told
the public in a much delayed manner that there was a a Legionella infection outbreak in Flint, even though Governor's Snyder's aides knew about it over a year ago, while apparently not informing Matthew Davis, MD, the previous chief medical officer, who was wholly ignorant about both the Legionnaires outbreak and lead contamination problems:
There was even acknowledgement from Snyder's top aides that perhaps Flint should be returned to Detroit as a raw water source from the emails, but notwithstanding that.…
........the State forced Flint to remain on Flint River water as a condition for
receiving a drinking water fund grant and for removal of the emergency manager
as Michigan Democrats have just found out by revealing a contract that Snyder's
people foisted on Flint:
Brandon Dillon, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, said:
"The Snyder Administration effectively put a financial gun to the heads of Flint families by using the Emergency Manager agreement to lock the City into taking water from a poisoned source even after alarm bells were going off all over the Snyder Administration that lead and Legionnaire's disease were poisoning families," Dillon said."It is simply unconscionable."