
Flint’s Children Suffer in Class After Years of Drinking the Lead-Poisoned Water - pseudolus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/us/politics/flint-michigan-schools.html
======
derek1800
The city of Flint has extremely high poverty and the schools were very bad
well before the water issue came to light. I wonder how much of this is due to
the lead in water vs just the situation of the city, high poverty, and poor
schools, etc. anecdotally I don’t think the things mentioned in this article
are all that different from other cities in similar situations without the
lead in water issue.

Either case hopefully they can turn things around for the kids who have to
grow up in this situation.

~~~
ivanhoe
Probably all of the factors you mention are important, but lead certainly
didn't help. The main reason to mention lead specifically is the horrible way
the situation with water pollution was handled by pretty much everyone, from
city officials to Obama himself with his completely disrespectful "take a
picture of me pretending to drink the Flint water" media stunt.

~~~
sokoloff
I agree that's disrespectful if the water he was drinking was not actually
Flint water, so I went looking. It appears that what he drank (an admittedly
small amount of) was actually filtered Flint water (and he identified it as
such).

I fail to see the disrespect or anything else untoward about his actions
there.

[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-drinks-filtered-
ci...](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-drinks-filtered-city-water-
in-flint-to-show-its-safe)

~~~
ptaipale
I would guess the "stunt" here is that everyone knows that drinking one glass
of Flint water won't really hurt you. It's the long-time exposure from
childhood that is the problem.

~~~
sokoloff
OK, so when the reporter specifically asks him if he'd drink the water in
front of him, what's his _least bad_ option? If he makes the speech he does,
saying "I don't do stunts" asserting its safety and takes a sip, he's handling
the situation as gracefully and productively as he can.

If instead he starts in with a lecture about how it's cumulative exposure,
affects children more severely, and _that_ is why he won't take a drink as a
publicity stunt, he knows that all that will be reported is "Obama refuses to
drink Flint water!"

This wasn't a planned stunt in my estimation (unless you think the reporter
was "in on it").

~~~
cyphar
First of all -- it was clearly a stunt. The question from the reporter where
he "drinks" some water[1] happened after he asked for water in the middle of a
speech[2] -- the moment in his speech was so obviously staged that it's not
worth elaborating past including the link to the video. With that in mind,
it's pretty clear that his answer to the reporter's (probably genuine)
question was just doubling-down on the point he'd made with his earlier stunt
-- that it's safe to drink.

But ignoring all of that -- why is it a good thing that he said the water was
safe? The water wasn't safe to drink, and the video of the President sipping
water from Flint means that the entire country collectively agreed that the
situation was fixed. But it wasn't fixed -- the water in Flint is still
contaminated with lead _today_.

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ZynkD3N_k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ZynkD3N_k)
[2]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjugN-
nUHh8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjugN-nUHh8)

~~~
cloverich
It doesn't seem obviously staged to me? The first video you linked he says the
water is filtered, emphasizes it multiple times, and says "this doesn't mean
we don't need to still replace some pipes". Is there more to the story?

~~~
cyphar
As far as I can tell, the second video I linked to (where he asks for water
during a speech) happened before the first one (where a reporter asks him
about the water he drank). The first one is a reporter following up to check
that the water actually was from Flint (and he says it is, but it's filtered)
-- and was probably a genuine question from a reporter after his speech (it's
probably one of the first questions I'd ask).

The thing I'm referring to as being clearly staged is when he asks in the
middle of a speech (where he was talking about things that need to be done in
Flint) for some water, takes a tiny sip (he must've been really thirsty!) and
continues. If you don't see that as being staged, I really don't know what I
could possibly say to convince you otherwise. People from the crowd were
shouting "don't drink" and he counters with "I know I'm going to be okay,
because I've already had some Flint water."

And you're right that he mentions it's filtered (after being asked that in a
follow-up and not when he first did the stunt, but whatever) -- but just
because he's not outright lying about the situation doesn't make it the
earlier stunt any less staged. There has been very little further outcry about
Flint in the past 6 years, because most people you talk to will say "Oh,
wasn't that thing in Flint solved years ago? Obama drank the water when he was
there!

------
jacobwilliamroy
I hear a lot about Flint's children but what about the adults? The lack of
reporting on the adult population is really freaking me out. Like, I want to
know if people with power, or people providing vital civil services have lead
poisoning. I am really concerned that the police and teachers and postal
workers and city council and parents etc. might all be mentally impaired. I
imagine the Mayor of Flint with lead poisoning and I just hear a voice in back
of my head quietly whispering "Caligula. Caligula."

~~~
empath75
I don’t think lead has as much of an impact on fully formed brains.

~~~
derek1800
But how long has led existed in the pipes? People now grown up could have been
impacted when young.

~~~
bluGill
I have a book from the 1920's that describes what additives to put into water
to prevent it from eroding the lead pipes. Of course back they were only
concerned about the pipes and didn't know about (or at least didn't admit) the
health problems. Lead used to be very common, up until the 1980s lead was used
for nearly all pipes in some way (generally only in solder though so not much
- though I don't know how harmful that amount is. Pipes in the ground are
generally expected to last for a long time (last I heard Boston still had wood
pipes from before the revolution in use), so it is safe to say all towns have
lead in their water system somewhere.

Thus all water supplies should be managing to reduce the ability of their
water supply to reduce lead. I would also suggest that you should go to your
town board and say your number one issue is getting rid of all the lead - and
you are fine with reverting major roads to gravel to pay for it. (and
seriously consider what other services are can be eliminated to find more
money)

------
metabagel
Sewage sludge testing doesn’t support that lead levels were high enough for
long enough to cause significant harm to children in Flint, Michigan. It’s
understandable that parents would be concerned and tend to overreact, though.

[https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/05/a-brand-
new-l...](https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/05/a-brand-new-look-at-
lead-contamination-in-flint/)

~~~
openasocket
The study that article links to doesn't make any assertion about the harm on
children. The author of the mother jones article doesn't seem to cite a source
for his claim that it probably didn't significantly harm children. According
to the CDC and EPA, there is no known safe level of lead in drinking water,
and based on the blood levels that study mentioned children were definitely
exposed to lead. Also keep in mind that the way lead leeching works means lead
levels in water will fluctuate and can spike to very high levels, so you will
see a large variance in how much lead different children were exposed to.

------
bobcostas55
This chart of Flint lead levels really puts the whole crisis into perspective:
[https://www.motherjones.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/blog_...](https://www.motherjones.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/blog_flint_lead_levels_1998_2016.gif)

~~~
BurningFrog
These are levels for 5 & 10 10 μg/dL.

I don't remember the exact number, and can't find it in 10 minutes of
googling, but before leaded gasoline was banned, the US average was much
higher.

My brain wants to say around 40. I probably misremember, but it was in that
range.

Which is to say that while the Flint situation is bad, it's much better than
how every kid grew up when I was young.

~~~
acuozzo
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis)

------
Causality1
I found it interesting that the article blames the behavior of these children
on exposure to lead but contains no information about how much lead they were
exposed to or how much lead was found in their blood, especially in the
individual cases held up as examples. Of course the people responsible for the
Flint Water Crisis deserve to be in prison, but if you claim that one year of
lead exposure can lead to multiple suspensions and 70 unexcused absences, I
want to know how much lead that is.

~~~
sjg007
It’s any detectable amount basically.

~~~
Causality1
But _was_ there any detectable amount in their blood? It's probable but you
can't just handwave those extreme behaviors without bothering to check.

~~~
sjg007
Yes.

------
jtms
Friendly reminder to test your water for yourself a couple times a year. Do
not take anyone else’s word for it. You can get decent tests online for $20-30
that will catch the most important types of contamination.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
Aren't you being insufficiently paranoid? No one should trust their municipal
water authority but they can totally trust the makers of water testing kits?
Obviously, everyone should reinvent all of the relevant chemistry and biology
and manufacture their own water treatment infrastructure. [This is sarcasm.
Your municipal water authority is probably fine. Everything involves
tradeoffs.]

~~~
jtms
Trust, but verify :-)

------
annoyingnoob
This seems like a test case for the association between lead and crime.
[http://freakonomics.com/2007/07/09/lead-and-
crime/](http://freakonomics.com/2007/07/09/lead-and-crime/)

~~~
seminatl
Test case not really needed. The evidence supporting the lead-crime hypothesis
is iron-clad at this point.

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/07z65p9a5wdppfl/LifeAfterLead_AEJ_...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/07z65p9a5wdppfl/LifeAfterLead_AEJ_Revision_3_16_17_wRevNotes.pdf?dl=0)

------
romaaeterna
Given the available ppb information, I have a hard time telling if Flint had a
lead crisis at all. Virginia Tech found that in 10% of homes they hit 25ppb
instead of 15ppb standard. And one home had 13,200ppb (which is either testing
error, or something special about the house).

Outside of the one house, this isn't enough lead exposure to see effects from.

EDIT: See thread below. Apparently it was not "Virginia Tech" that is the
source for these measurements, as reported by the media, but a group calling
themselves "The Virginia Tech Research Team". They maintain
[http://flintwaterstudy.org/](http://flintwaterstudy.org/) and you can
evaluate them for yourself.

~~~
ianai
The 13k figure is accurate. Lead leaking into water from solder erosion
doesn’t follow a constant, predictable level. The lead breaks off at
intermittent rates into the flow. Please refer to other comments and sources
for more.

~~~
romaaeterna
Looking at the team doing the test's web page doesn't provide great evidence
for neutrality:

[https://imgur.com/ZUoXQ52](https://imgur.com/ZUoXQ52)
[http://flintwaterstudy.org/about-page/about-
us/](http://flintwaterstudy.org/about-page/about-us/)

In fact, they look like an advocacy organization, not scientific group at all.
Something stinks to high heaven here, and it's not Flint's water.

~~~
ianai
I’m not even referring to that source, straw man attacker.

------
BrandonMarc
Flint leadership deserves a lot of blame.

I read a story (can't find it) about a contractor who intended to do a high
quality job taking care of the lead pipes ... but the city of Flint instead
gave it to a different contractor, who charged more, did a crappier job
(leaving many problems unfixed), used obsolete tech, and took longer.

But, the chosen contractor was politically connected, so ...

~~~
bilbo0s
The city of Flint was taken over by the state a long while ago. So the city
would not have made that decision in any case.

The problem with Flint was that they thought having state government take them
over and make all the decisions would result in better decisions being made.
But that's not how it works. Sometimes, it just results in other people making
bad decisions on your behalf.

------
fortran77
There may also be lead from other sources. See:

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180326090313.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180326090313.htm)

------
Dirlewanger
In 100 years, Flint, Michigan is going to be one of those cases in US history
books that shows the ugly side of the American spirit and how little faith we
have in local government to do anything right (and how that's often the case).

------
MarcScott
In a few years time, I expect we'll see a significant increase in the crime
statistics in Flint.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis)

~~~
derek1800
You do realize flint is one of the worst cities in all US for crime. I am not
sure it is possible to get worse from where it is now.

~~~
sokoloff
Why wouldn’t it be possible to get worse? The murder rate of 19 per 50K is
still fairly low in overall terms and could dramatically increase without
triggering any “natural limit”.

Combine that with the adverse selection of population, it could get quite a
bit more dire. If you had significant resources and flexibility, you’ve
probably already moved your family out of Flint. As things get worse, people
with “any” rather than “significant” resources/flexibility will move out. As
you remove swaths of population who (for whatever reason) tend to commit less
violent crime, your remaining violent crime rate gets worse.

~~~
derek1800
It can technically And definitely get worse but if you are using that
statistic only you wouldn’t understand the totality of how bad it is in Flint.
You really have to see it to understand how bad it is. My point is you cannot
make it seem like all of sudden flint is going to become high crime rate going
forward due to this.

~~~
ur725
That was not at all their point or what they were getting at. Things can
always get worse, and this single statistic can be the tipping point to make
it worse. I say this as someone who LIVES in the area. Betting you do not.

------
yosefzeev
All water connects, sooner or later. The problem should be fixed if for no
other reason on account of this fact.

------
bsanr2
Glad to see Hacker News is again upholding Internet Rule 814: the comment
section for any article alleging disparate impact of policy on a group
presumed to be people of color will consist largely of posts attempting to
contradict the article, rather than posts discussing what should be done if
considering that the article's claims are true.

~~~
dang
The contrarian dynamic applies to every topic. Indeed, your comment is a
classic phase-2 contrarian: the one that shows up to object to the objections.
Those typically say something like "I can't believe the comments here are so
X", and achieve ironic standing by getting upvoted to the top of the thread
(which happened in this case). The mechanism is so universal that I don't
think specific explanations are needed.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22contrarian%20dynamic%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

But yes, race-related discussions are fraught, and there's little doubt that
race-related, if not racist, beliefs and feelings lie behind some of what
people say in them.

~~~
bsanr2
The problem is less that controversial subjects draw contrarians than it is
that anything that even approaches race is controversial; even with subjects
in which the facts and science are pretty much concluded - like, say, the
devastating effects of lead poisoning caused by water resource mismanagement -
if PoC are to be the benefactors of rectification of the issue, said issue
becomes questionable.

Given the context (American society and history), the situation is unlike
other controversial topics. It's like comparing critical decision-making to
kneejerk reactionism; we just can't seem to help ourselves. I feel like that's
worth pointing out, above and beyond simple exhaustion with the "Actually"
crowd.

~~~
dang
I think this misses how the contrarian dynamic works. It isn't that
controversial topics draw contrarians, it's that _all_ topics do. When people
see something they dislike or feel they've spotted a flaw, they rush to point
it out. Threads fill up initially with negative responses, not because the
community is unusually negative or disproportionately disagrees with article
X, but because contrarian responses are the fastest ones to form in the brain.
They don't require much processing time or writing time. They're reflexive,
not reflective.
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20reflexive%20reflect&sort=byDate&type=comment)

After that first wave of comments, we frequently see a second wave of comments
objecting in a reflexive way to the first wave. Although they take the
opposing position—defending the article and criticizing the comments—it's the
same contrarian dynamic, the same mechanism, driving them. Usually the second
wave gets upvoted the most, leading to the paradox of the top comment in a
thread expressing how bad the thread is, or the most popular comment
expressing how wrong the populace is.

There's a place for such comments, and it wouldn't work to exclude them
anyhow. But their rapidity means that they add less information. That's not
because they're shorter (though it does take longer to add more information).
The problem is how predictable they are. They're fast because they're largely
precomputed—they're really responses to past things, stored up and ready to
fire when a similar-enough signal arises. Comments like that make for repeats
of past discussions, which are less interesting. They don't gratify
intellectual curiosity.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Comments that add new information, rather than repeating what has been thought
or felt or said before, tend to be reflective rather than reflexive. This
happens when a topic sparks a new thought or feeling, or touches an unusual
experience one has had. These comments add new information and encourage
discussions that aren't just repetitions of old ones. But they require
processing time: they have to be computed from scratch, not just fetched from
cache. It isn't just that they take longer to write, but that it takes longer
to form new pathways. It also consumes more energy, which means that
reflective comments tend to come out quieter and more delicate than reflexive
ones do. And they take more time and energy to read, too, so replies are more
likely to be reflective in their own right.

The task of HN can be summed up as: how can we nurture reflective responses
and give them priority over reflexive ones, given that the latter are both
faster and stronger? How can we get into a reflective-reflective cycle rather
than a reflexive-reflexive one?

I agree with you about race relations being a force multiplier on this (and
also [1]). But I'm insisting on the more general issue of contrarian dynamics
because it shows why you can't conclude that negative comments, which spring
up like mushrooms when a thread is fresh, represent the community. It's a non
sequitur, for example, to imply/conclude as you did in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21474980](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21474980)
that HN's community must be racist because the comments found fault with the
article. That phenomenon is general: the comments always find fault with the
article [2]. The fact that the community upvoted your comment to the top
(where it was sitting before I moderated it) suggests that much of it is
aligned with your view. This interplay between votes and comments is typical.

Most of what we see on HN is so determined by the basic structure of the
internet and the initial conditions of this forum that I appreciate McLuhan's
"the medium is the message" more every day. It is far more deeply true than I
ever realized.

[1] You're right that the context of American society and history makes the
topic of race especially charged. But it's even worse than that here. HN's
audience is at least half outside the U.S., leading to additional
externalities and conflicts that look like something other than what they are,
and so are particularly difficult to understand. This overlaps with the
American context in inflammatory ways that make the threads both worse and
harder to recover from. Basically everybody is fighting from their own, often
very different, context and history without even realizing that they're doing
it.

[2] That phenomenon is also far stronger than it appears to be, because as
moderators we're constantly doing things to counteract it. If we didn't mark
shallow dismissals and reflexive negations as off topic, which lowers their
rank on the page, they would probably dominate every thread.

~~~
bsanr2
This has not been my experience. While it's true that some topics do seem to
draw contrarian viewpoints immediately, not all do; and while reflexive
reactions are most likely to be found immediately on almost all topics, they
need not be negative. For non-controversial topics, the reflexive reactions
tend to be memes (less common but not unheard of on HN) or affirmative
standard talking points - suportive statements generated from common
associations. For example, an HN post about a new organizational technique
will often fill up with replies explaining how users implement those practices
themselves, what tools they use, etc. Because these topics are generally
uncontroversial, the defensiveness that is the impetus for contrarian
reactionism doesn't arise.

The answer to the issue is fairly simple but relies entirely on the humility
of HN's userbase, particularly in regard to topics that seem easy to expound
upon "logically" but for which they generally are lacking in knowledge of or
experience with.

Therefore, I have little hope.

I'll keep pointing out the fallacy when I see it, though.

------
excalibur
> That lawsuit forced the state to establish the $3 million Neurodevelopmental
> Center of Excellence, which began screening students.

That name though. The Neurodevelopmental Center of Excellence is in Flint.
It's like hosting an event called the Summit for Cancer-Free Japan, and
holding it at Fukushima.

