November 19, 2020 zacherlaw 0 Comments

Flint water crisis settlement grows to $641 million

The settlement of the Flint water crisis lawsuits has recently grown to $641 million dollars. The initial settlement amount this summer was $600 million, but the amount increased with additional defendants, including the city of Flint, joining the settlement. With roughly 80 percent of the settlement slated to go to children, prioritizing those who were 6 years old or younger when they were first exposed to Flint River water, money will also be available to those who contracted Legionnaires’ disease from Flint water. People who were both exposed to water received from the Flint treatment plant and diagnosed with Legionnaires’…

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January 18, 2018 zacherlaw 0 Comments

Potential Flint water crisis prosecutions move forward

Over the course of 2014 and 2015, approximately a dozen people died from an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease during Flint’s water crisis. Now it appears as though some of the next steps regarding a potential prosecution are moving ahead. To start, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon is scheduled to restart his preliminary examination this Friday, Jan. 19 and is facing charges of involuntary manslaughter along with misconduct in office. This is significant because Lyon appears to be one of the state public health officials who was aware of the Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks in the Flint…

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August 14, 2017 zacherlaw 0 Comments

Legionnaires’ disease cases spike 143% in Michigan

According to Health officials in the state of Michigan cases of legionnaires’ disease have increase 143% over a three year period.  In June and July alone, there have been 73 confirmed cases on legionnella pneumonia, also know as Legionnaires’ disease. Officials stated that they are conducting investigation to attempt to determine the cause of this increase. At this point, there has been no common source between all of these cases. Flint, MI is one of the places where legionella has been found in dangerous concentration, on top of the lead that was discovered in the water causing national attention to…

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May 11, 2017 zacherlaw 0 Comments

Wayne State Researchers Release More Info About Flint Legionnaires’ Outbreak

A team of researchers from the fields of both public health and environmental engineering has released some findings from an 18 month long investigation into the outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease in Flint. The Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership conducted random water sampling of Genesee County households in the Fall of 2016. The team found legionella bacteria in 12% of the 200 tested households, which according to the researchers is what is considered to be a normal amount nationwide. The team found 18 different isolates of Legionella pneumophila. The most common serogroup found by the researchers, by far, was…

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April 4, 2017 zacherlaw 0 Comments

Researcher Concludes That Flint Water System Was A Perfect Storm for Legionnaires’ Outbreak

Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech Civil and Environmental Engineering professor released a selection unpublished results from his team’s study of the 2015 outbreaks of Legionnaires’ Disease that killed 12 people in Flint, Michigan. Edwards, who is most known for sounding the alarm about the dangerous levels of lead in the Flint water system in 2015, believes that the Legionnaires’ Disease outbreak is a result of the water supply switch to the Flint river, coupled with the lack of any application of anti-corrosive and chlorination treatments. To conduct this study, Professor Edwards and his team simulated the outbreak in a lab. Edwards and his…

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March 28, 2017 zacherlaw 0 Comments

State of Michigan and Flint to Replace 20,000 Water Lines by 2020

According to the settlement filings from the ACLU and NRDC’s lawsuit against the City of Flint and the State of Michigan, both defendants are to replace around 18,000 tainted water lines leading to homes from the Flint municipal water supply. The whole operation is expected to cost ninety million dollars and is slated to be completed by 2020. As a result of the disuse of anti-corrosive agents, as well as chlorinated water treatment, these water lines carried not only exceedingly high levels of lead, but legionella bacteria that ended up causing the deaths of 12 Flint residents. More information can be found here…

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March 17, 2017 zacherlaw 0 Comments

Flint Hospital Releases Report Critical of Michigan Department of Health’s Handling of Flint Legionella Outbreak

Chad Grant, the CEO of McLaren Flint Hospital, the facility at the center of the Flint Legionnaires’ Outbreak, released an extremely critical report as a response to a state health department order for the hospital to “correct conditions”. Grant accused state officials of “blaming and attacking” McLaren Flint, and treating it as if it were the sole cause of the Flint outbreak in order to deflect attention from themselves. He referred to the accusations as “unwarranted and unjustified”. Grant points to the Flint municipal water system, which changed its source from Lake Huron to the Flint River, as the driving force behind the…

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March 14, 2017 zacherlaw 0 Comments

First Public Official Sentenced In Flint Water Crisis

The former director of disease control and prevention at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Corrine Miller, has been sentenced for her involvement in the 2014-2015 outbreak of Legionnaires Disease that killed 12 people in Flint. Corrine Miller admitted to knowing about 100 cases of Legionnaires Disease in the Flint area and failing to report these findings to local hospitals, as well as the general public. Last September, Miller pleaded no contest to a charge of willful neglect of duty, the least serious of the charges filed against her. Miller received 1 year of probation, as well as…

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March 6, 2017 zacherlaw 0 Comments

CDC Finds Genetic Link Between Flint River Water and Legionnaires’ Disease

A late 2016 test conducted by the CDC has found a genetic link between samples of Legionella found in the phlegm of patients at McLaren Flint Hospital and Legionella found in water samples taken from multiple water sources at McLaren Flint Hospital. The CDC found that around 99% of the alleles of both samples matched, reaching the threshold for what is considered to be a genetic match. McLaren Flint Hospital was at the epicenter of the 2014-2015 Flint Legionnaires’ Outbreak that corresponded with the much wider-known Flint Water Crisis. Of the 12 reported fatalities in the Flint-area, 10 fatalities were associated with…

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December 30, 2016 zacherlaw 0 Comments

Update: Michigan Court of Appeals orders McLaren-Flint Hospital to produce documents related to the water crisis

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services was previously prohibited from accessing documents about Legionella cases at McLaren-Flint Hospital due to a protective order. However, now the Michigan Court of Appeals has ordered the hospital to produce these documents. The Department was trying to obtain these documents to investigate the cases of Legionnaires’ disease caused by the contaminated water in Flint, Michigan. According to a spokesperson for Governor Rick Snyder – Anna Heaton – the Protective Order prevented the Department from performing their duties of protecting the public. The Hospital felt the Protective Order was necessary due to lawsuits…

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