As Flint Suffers, Michigan Officials Won’t Test Water for Deadly Disease
SputnikNews.com
25.02.2016
Despite a major uptick in cases of Legionnaires disease in the city of Flint, which has already left ten people dead, Michigan is refusing to test the city’s contaminated water supply to conclusively link the bacteria to the likely source.
Legionnaires disease is a deadly waterborne bacterial infection that has infected 87 Flint area residents since June 2014. The average for Genessee County is around a dozen infections per year.
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder acknowledged the spike last month, but has stalled on testing the water to confirm that officials were not just poisoning the people of Flint with toxic levels of lead.
“There’s investigations still going on to try and make that determination,” Snyder said at the January 13 press conference. “But from a scientific or medical point of view, I don’t believe that determination can be made today.”
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services claimed that water tests were impossible as they did not have samples of the bacteria from infected patients, though Detroit News determined that to be untrue, and called officials out on having samples from twelve patients.
“There is a limit to how many times you can play dumb when it comes to events and actions that take place on your watch,” Michigan Democratic Party chair Brandon Dillon wrote. “This governor is either a victim of the culture of secrecy that he created or he’s lying. If he didn’t know, the incompetence is astounding. If he’s lying, the betrayal of trust is unforgivable.”
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