Flint Doctor Mona Hanna-Attisha on How She Fought Gov't Denials to Expose Poisoning of City's Kids — Transcript

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1. 0:00well protests continue in Michigan
2. 0:01calling for the resignation of Governor
3. 0:03Rick Snider over the contamination
4. 0:05crisis his government has caused in the
5. 0:08city of Flint's water supply on Thursday
6. 0:11a large crowd rallied inside the state
7. 0:14capital and Lancing demanding that
8. 0:16Snyder steep
9. 0:17down don't let anybody tell you this is
10. 0:21just about
11. 0:24water this is about Emergency
12. 0:28Management this is about
13. 0:32GRE this is about political
14. 0:37corruption and he will either resign or
15. 0:40be
16. 0:41recall the poisoning began in April 2014
17. 0:46after Darnell early an an unelected
18. 0:48emergency manager appointed by Snider
19. 0:51switched Flint's water source to the
20. 0:53long polluted and corrosive Flint River
21. 0:55in a bid to save money for over a year
22. 0:58Flint residents complained about the
23. 1:00quality of the water but their cries
24. 1:02were ignored in February the government
25. 1:04knew of tests showing alarming levels of
26. 1:07lead in the water but officials told
27. 1:09residents there was no threat that same
28. 1:11month an EPA official wrote an email to
29. 1:14the Michigan Department of Environmental
30. 1:15Quality warning about lead contamination
31. 1:18no action was taken then in July
32. 1:21Governor Snider's Chief of Staff Dennis
33. 1:23much more wrote an email to health
34. 1:26officials admitting Flint residents were
35. 1:28quote basically getting blown off by us
36. 1:30unquote critics say Flint's Health was
37. 1:32ignored due to the political
38. 1:34calculations of Snider's Republican
39. 1:36Administration one of the poorest cities
40. 1:38in the country Flint has a 40% poverty
41. 1:41rate and a majority African-American
42. 1:43population Flint residents now face the
43. 1:45threat of a major Health crisis whose
44. 1:47full effects won't be known for years
45. 1:48lead can cause permanent Health impacts
46. 1:50including memory loss developmental
47. 1:52impairment irreversible brain damage
48. 1:54speech issues serious chronic conditions
49. 1:56especially among children at least 10
50. 1:59Flint RIS now have also died from
51. 2:01Legionnaire's Disease amidst of Surge
52. 2:03and infections caused by the waterborne
53. 2:05bacteria experts say the Legionnaire's
54. 2:07outbreak may be tied to the
55. 2:09contamination a study released in
56. 2:10September found the proportion of
57. 2:12children under five and Flint with
58. 2:14elevated levels of lead and their blood
59. 2:16nearly doubled following the water
60. 2:17switch State officials initially
61. 2:19dismissed those findings but the doctor
62. 2:21who discovered them Dr Mona hantia
63. 2:24refused to accept the state's denials
64. 2:26County officials finally acknowledge the
65. 2:28problem by declaring a public health
66. 2:29emergency October 1st on Thursday Dr
67. 2:31Hannah Atia was named the head of a new
68. 2:34public health initiative to help those
69. 2:36exposed to the contamination we're
70. 2:38joined Now by Dr Mona Atia director of
71. 2:40the Pediatric Residency program at
72. 2:42Hurley children's hospital and assistant
73. 2:44professor of pediatrics at Michigan
74. 2:45State University this is truly
75. 2:47astounding Dr Mona as you are known can
76. 2:50you talk about when you realized that
77. 2:54especially children were being
78. 2:56contaminated by lead and how the state
79. 2:58responded
80. 3:00yeah so in late August we were hearing
81. 3:02reports from the Virginia Tech group
82. 3:04that there was lead in the water and
83. 3:06when pediatricians hear about lead
84. 3:08anywhere we freak out we know lead Le
85. 3:11lead as you said is a known potent
86. 3:13irreversible neurotoxin so we wanted to
87. 3:16see if that lead in the water was
88. 3:18getting into the bodies of children so
89. 3:20that's when we started doing our
90. 3:21research and uh what we found was
91. 3:23alarming but not surprising based on
92. 3:26what we knew about the water um the
93. 3:28percentage of children with elevated
94. 3:29lead level tripled in the whole city and
95. 3:31in some neighborhoods um actually it
96. 3:33doubled in the whole city and in some
97. 3:35neighborhoods it tripled and it directly
98. 3:38correlated um with where the water lead
99. 3:40levels were the highest um so we shared
100. 3:43these results um at a press conference
101. 3:45and you don't usually share research at
102. 3:47press conferences it's supposed to be
103. 3:49shared in published medical journals but
104. 3:51which now it is um but we had an ethical
105. 3:53moral professional responsibility to
106. 3:56alert our community um about this this
107. 3:58crisis this emergency
108. 4:00and the research that you did all it
109. 4:02took was being able to go back in your
110. 4:04own medical records didn't it wasn't a
111. 4:07series of new testing that you had to do
112. 4:09could you talk about that right so um we
113. 4:11routinely screen children for lead at
114. 4:13the ages of one and the ages of two um
115. 4:16Medicaid children uh who are on public
116. 4:18Insurance um are recommended to get lead
117. 4:20screening so we had the data it was the
118. 4:22easiest research project I have ever
119. 4:24done um so all we did was go back and
120. 4:26look at our data and we compared the
121. 4:28percentage of children with elevated
122. 4:30lead levels before the water switch
123. 4:32which was 2013 to um 2015 and that water
124. 4:35switch happened in 2014 so talk about
125. 4:38what happened after you held your news
126. 4:41conference well um that evening we were
127. 4:44attacked uh so I was called an
128. 4:46unfortunate researcher that I was
129. 4:47causing near hysteria that I was
130. 4:49splicing and dicing numbers um and that
131. 4:52the state data was not consistent with
132. 4:54my data and as a scientist as a
133. 4:57researcher as a professional um you you
134. 5:00you double check and you triple check
135. 5:02and and the numbers didn't lie so and we
136. 5:04knew that but when the state with a team
137. 5:07of like 50 epidemiologist tells you
138. 5:09you're wrong um you second guess
139. 5:11yourself um but that lasted just a short
140. 5:13period and we regrouped and um told them
141. 5:16why no you were wrong um and after about
142. 5:19a week and a half or two weeks um after
143. 5:21some good conversations they relooked at
144. 5:23their numbers and uh finally said that
145. 5:25um the state's findings were consistent
146. 5:27with my findings you have busted this
147. 5:28thing right open and you were standing
148. 5:31behind the governor and his people just
149. 5:33the other day in a news conference have
150. 5:34you've been named head of um uh well you
151. 5:37can tell us what you've been named head
152. 5:39of but as they read the figures of
153. 5:41people who are contaminated you were
154. 5:43shaking your head no right there in the
155. 5:46frame standing behind the government
156. 5:48Health officials you were supposed to be
157. 5:49standing with them and you were shaking
158. 5:51your head
159. 5:53no yes so I am um willing to work with
160. 5:57anybody for the benefit of children and
161. 5:59I was at that press conference uh with
162. 6:01the governor and with State Health
163. 6:02officials who we are working with now um
164. 6:06however um they said that only 43 people
165. 6:08since October um had elevated lead
166. 6:11levels and it really minimizes this
167. 6:14population wide exposure um this is an
168. 6:17entire population who was exposed to
169. 6:19this neurotoxin So when you say these
170. 6:22small numbers it just it it just once
171. 6:25again uh the population loses trust um
172. 6:29you know inment and in in their ability
173. 6:31to protect people