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…
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…
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…
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…
On Friday, September 2nd, special prosecutor Todd Flood and Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton stated that they expect additional criminal charges to be filed regarding the water crisis in Flint, MI. Back in 2014, officials of the Department of Environmental Quality allowed the city to change its water source to the Flint River without requiring the water to be treated to make it less corrosive. Between 2014 and 2015 at least twelve people died as a result of Legionnaires’ disease, an infection caused by Legionella bacteria found in water systems, suggesting a possible correlation between the change in the city’s water source and the Legionnaires’…
The first case of Legionnaires’ disease this year has been reported in the Flint, MI area. The news comes less than a week after county officials issued a statement saying that no new cases of Legionnaires’ disease had been reported in Flint’s county in 2016. In a statement released on June 30, the Genesee County Health Department stated that no residents of the area have contracted the disease in 2016. On July 6, however, officials from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced that a patient from the Genesee County area had been diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease. The…
Mike Glasgow, Flint laboratory and water quality supervisor, is shown in this Flint Journal file photo. An interesting piece of information about the Flint water crisis emerged yesterday at an open hearing where members of the Flint community could testify before a Joint Committee. A water treatment plant official, Mike Glasgow, testified that he had tried to increase his staff number and the protection measures being taken as the switch to the Flint River occurred. However, he was blocked from doing so by officials at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). Glasgow became well known…
Protestors march along Saginaw Street demanding clean water outside of Flint City Hall in Flint, Mich. on Wednesday Oct. 7, 2015. Christian Randolph | MLive.com Summer is approaching quickly, and with it, warmer weather. Generally this is a pleasant transition from a cold winter, but the residents of Flint, Michigan may have a reason to dread the upcoming season. The transition to Spring may see an uptick in the number of cases of Legionnaires’ disease. Bacteria thrive in warmer water, and Flint has had a terrible problem with bacteria in the past year. Second to lead exposure, Legionella bacteria has been…
88 people contracted Legionnaires’ disease from June 2014 to November 2015. Until recently, nine of those 88 had died due to the illness, but health officials have added another individual to the list of those who succumbed to Legionnaires’ disease bringing the total to 10. The outbreak in Flint, MI has been one of the worst outbreaks in history, breaking the top ten in number of deaths recorded. While a conclusive link between the Flint River and the water crisis in Flint has not been fully established, the circumstances strongly suggest that oversights by both the Flint government and the…