What the Eyes Don't See by Mona Hanna-Attisha

Author:Mona Hanna-Attisha
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2018-06-19T04:00:00+00:00

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I RAN BACK UP TO CLINIC—sometimes I still can’t get over the fact that I work above a farmers’ market—and quickly sent an email to the folks who run the Genesee County Health Department’s Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, which provides pregnant moms and young kids with nutritional support. Could they help us get ready-to-feed formula? I thought of little Nakala, now on her fourth week of powdered formula. The clock was ticking, not just for her but for all the babies in Flint. If there was ever a time I wished we had more breastfeeding moms, it was now.

“Babies who are drinking formula mixed with tap water (especially warm tap water) are at greatest risk for lead exposure,” I wrote. “Water is such a huge proportion of their diet and their brains are still developing. Until we have definitive information about lead exposure, we should err on additional prevention, especially for our most vulnerable kids.”

I received a response that they were concerned, but “don’t have the means to provide either water or vouchers.” Angry, I texted Elin to see if she could follow up with Jordan in Kildee’s office, hoping he could pressure the USDA to provide ready-to-feed formula now. She did, and Jordan tried but was told that the USDA couldn’t do a waiver unless there was actually a health advisory or official emergency.

So that was it: we were back in the Bizarro World of the Kehoe Rule, where we had to prove there was danger and harm before anything could be done. The onus was on us.

I summarized my lunch meeting in a long email to Melany. Thanks to all my talks with Elin and now Marc, I felt like I had taken a crash graduate school course on lead and water. “We’re facing a disaster,” I wrote. “It could be seen a mile away, but now that it’s in our faces, we have to act, and soon.”

Melany responded quickly. She thanked me for the recap and said she was already thinking about the next steps. Then she said the magic words.

“I want us to be part of the solution.”

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