Experts: Many Flint Residents Not Taking Advantage Of Health Programs
FLINT (WWJ) Members of a special committee looking into the Flint water crisis met Friday to discuss the latest efforts to ensure everyone is receiving the best medical treatment possible.
And it wasn't positive.
State health director Nick Lyons says there are numerous programs available, but many people aren't taking advantage.
"You can't generally force people into doing something that they don't want to do," Lyons said. "Although that does not change our desire to impact every family that has been affected by the water."
In the meantime, the Centers for Disease Control is currently assisting the Genessee County health department to investigate six confirmed cases of Legionella, as well as a half dozen other potential cases, to determine if they were caused by tainted water.
Health officials and the federal government are also actively trying to figure out why so many people in Flint have reported rashes and hair loss.
The goal is to follow up with every family in which a child had an elevated lead level, but that apparently is being stymied in many cases.
"What we saw in many instances were parents and families were turning down these services," he added.
There's a distrust in Flint, obviously, of state and city officials, and potentially even medical professionals after residents sought help in public meetings for months over cloudy, stinky water flowing from the tap, and ensuing health problems. They were initially assured there wasn't an issue.
Emails later produced by the governor's office showed what many considered to be a disregard for the public's concerns among high-ranking state officials.
Eventually, the complaints reached a crescendo and officials were forced to acknowledge the water flowing in Flint was tainted with unsafe levels of lead. It happened when city officials had gotten the go-ahead to start drawing water from the Flint River to save money, and lax state oversight and faulty testing was blamed for allowing it to perpetuate.