The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s results indicated that during the 18 months the city was using the Flint River as its water source, the likelihood that a child’s blood-lead level would be more than 5 micrograms per deciliter of blood was nearly 50% higher than before the switch in April 2014.
The findings largely tracked those reported last September by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at Hurley Children’s Hospital in Flint, who looked at blood test results and found the number of children with elevated lead levels had jumped from 2.1% to 4% and was even higher in certain areas of the city.
Hannna-Attisha’s report was considered a watershed moment in drawing attention to the then-growing public health crisis in Flint, where lead started leaching out of old lead water pipes into residents’ taps when the city switched water sources without being required by the state to also use corrosion control. Hanna-Attisha was traveling and unavailable for comment Friday.