In April 2014, Flint, MI’s state-appointed Emergency Manager Darnell Earley made a decision to save $5 million by switching Flint, MI’s water source from Lake Huron to the heavily polluted Flint River. High acidity in the river eroded the protective coating on the city’s lead water pipes, introducing lead into the water supply. Lead is associated with a variety of health and behavioral problems, including impaired growth, kidney damage, high blood pressure, lower intelligence and criminal behavior. Emails show that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a former venture capitalist with an estimated net worth of $200 million, attempted to cover up the crisis for several months. It is difficult to determine what role the racial and socioeconomic composition of Flint—as opposed to Republican business values—played in the origin of the crisis or the delay in addressing it. Flint is 53% Black and 45% of its residents live below the poverty line.
New research demonstrates some of the results of lead exposure for Flint’s citizens. A paper by Drs. Daniel Grossman of the University of West Virginia and David Slusky of the University of Kansas looked at its consequences for fertility and fetal death rates. Dr. Marc Edwards of Virginia Tech—who played an important role in documenting the lead levels in Flint—had previously found decreases in fertility and increases in fetal deaths as a result of lead exposure through drinking water.
The Flint water crisis can be seen as a natural experiment with tragic consequences. Their analysis is an interrupted time series design with multiple comparison groups. The interruption occurred in April 2014, when Flint’s water supply was contaminated. The researchers examined changes in several variables of interest in Flint from before to after that date, using Michigan’s 15 other largest cities as comparison groups. Racial, socioeconomic and other demographic characteristics of the parents and children were statistically controlled. Here are the highlights:
- The fertility rate after April 2014 was 8.5 births per 1000 women lower in Flint than in the comparison cities. This is a 12% decline in fertility and amounts to between 198 and 276 fewer children born in Flint during the time of the study due to the water crisis. Here are the trend lines.
- There was a “horrifyingly large” 58% increase in the fetal death rate—defined as pregnancies of more than 20 weeks that do not result in a live birth—compared to other Michigan cities. This explains some, but not all, of the decline in fertility.
- After April 2014, the overall health of Flint’s babies was not as good as those born in the other cities. They were born half a week sooner, were 150 grams lighter at birth, and gained 5 grams per week less than babies in the comparison groups. They also contained a .74% higher percentage of females. This is explained by the fact that male fetuses are more susceptible to prenatal damage.
Alternative explanations for an interrupted time series design focus on the possibility that something else happened in Flint in April 2014 that did not happen in Detroit’s other cities that affected its fertility rate. Maybe the change in the smell or taste of the water was sufficiently alarming to Flint residents to cause them to have less sex, or at least less unprotected sex.
- However, Flint residents did not report any less sexual activity on the American Time Use Survey.
- As a further check on whether Flint women were avoiding pregnancy, the authors examined Google Trends data and found that Flint residents did not conduct any more online searches related to lead or lead poisoning until after September 2015 when the crisis became public, too late to explain the data.
Even if Flint residents avoided pregnancy during the water crisis, this does not explain the increase in fetal deaths or the differences in the health of newborns.
Dr. Slusky discusses the results of their study in this video.
It is likely that the residents of Flint will be dealing with social problems due to the lead crisis for decades, possibly even for generations. The Michigan Attorney General has filed indictments against 15 individuals for their roles in the crisis, but experience suggests that they are unlikely to be held accountable in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, experts are suggesting that residents of many other U. S. cities are being poisoned by lead. Of course, if we continue to defund the Environmental Protection Agency, we are less likely to be aware of the seriousness of the problem.
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