Report Finds Flint Water Crisis May Have Killed 119--Nearly 10 Times Official Death Toll

[Judi Lynn]

Published on
Thursday, July 26, 2018
by Common Dreams

The findings come as a judge delays a trial for Michigan's health chief

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer

Less than a week after a federal watchdog blasted all levels of government for their failures to prevent and quickly respond to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, an ongoing investigation by PBS's "FRONTLINE" found that the death toll may be much higher than the official number reported by the state.

The investigation—which centers on Legionnaires' disease, a form of pneumonia caused by the legionella bacteria—comes from an extensive review of six years of death records, and interviews with families of the deceased as well as several epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists.

As "FRONTLINE" reports:

Officially, 90 people were sickened and 12 died from exposure to waterborne legionella bacteria during the 18 months that the city of Flint drew its water from the Flint River in 2014 and 2015. But FRONTLINE's investigation has found 119 deaths from pneumonia during that time, some of which scientists say could actually have been caused by legionella.

[...]

If the death toll is higher, as the records and interviews suggest, a 15-month delay by state officials in notifying the community about the legionella outbreak may have cost even more lives than the deaths state prosecutors have cited in an ongoing criminal case.

More:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/26/report-finds-flint-water-crisis-may-have-killed-119-nearly-10-times-official-death

[RockRaven]

1. Republican politicians enact policies which kill more poor people than they are willing to admit?

I, for one, am shocked!!!!

[JayhawkSD]

2. Hard to get excited over "may have" and

"...119 deaths from pneumonia during that time, some of which scientists say could actually have been caused by legionella."

And the pneumonia could have been caused by little green men from Mars, too, but I'm not going to get excited about a Martian invasion. Reporting about what might have happened because it fits your political point of view is not news reporting. No reputable journalist should ever be writing about what might have happened. News reporting is about what did happen.

[defacto7]

3. More tests will confirm or dismiss.

The point is, delay in notifying the public would keep people from protection. Delaying the trial means they will need to determine the cause of the deaths. It's a perfectly reasonable report.