
Amid denials, state workers in Flint got clean water - randomname2
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/01/28/amid-denials-state-workers-flint-got-clean-water/79470650/
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glenra
If this article ( [http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/01/raw-data-
lead-...](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/01/raw-data-lead-
poisoning-kids-flint) ) is correct, the problem specifically of _lead_ in
Flint seems to have been worse throughout the 1990s and most of the 2000s. The
recent upward spike only made it as bad as it had been in _2010_. So should
people have been panicked and drinking bottled water there for most of the
last 30 years? Or was downplaying the current risk level - in context - kind
of reasonable?

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kafkaesq
Have you looked closely at the analysis in that article?

It's a total fudge, basically. But even if it weren't:

 _So should people have been panicked and drinking bottled water there for
most of the last 30 years?_

The problem with what you're asking (and perhaps the biggest problem with the
MJ article you cited) is that in past decades, lead poisoning (as measured by
children's blood levels) has come from _multiple sources_ (lead-based paint in
homes being the most widely cited culprit). So it's an apples-to-oranges
comparison to start with.

And any numerical "extrapolations" from those numbers to what the comparative
risk factors from _water sources_ might have been, going back decades, are
equally vacuous.

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bobby_9x
I don't understand why they didnt't just announce to the public about the bad
water.

It would have made it looked like they actually cared about the citizens of
Flint, once.

~~~
kafkaesq
Because it goes to the very core of their attitude about the people they
govern: Not only could they not begin to care -- they don't care about even
looking like they care, either.

