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Flint recorded fewer births and higher fetal death rates compared to other Michigan communities when the city’s drinking water was contaminated with lead, a newly released report found.
To gauge how the Genesee County city’s switch in April 2014 from Lake Huron water in the Detroit system to the Flint River impacted fertility and health, University of Kansas assistant economics professors David Slusky and Daniel Grossman examined birth and death certificates issued in Flint and 15 comparable cities statewide from 2008 through 2015.
“This represents a couple hundred fewer children born that otherwise would have been,” Slusky said in a statement.
The report comes as more than a dozen former and current environmental and health officials — including State Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon and Michigan’s chief medical officer, Dr. Eden Wells — have been charged, some criminally, for their roles in the water contamination and a Legionnaires’ outbreak linked to at least 12 deaths.
It also ruled out other potential causes for the reduction in fertility and birth rates in Flint, noting that lead leached into the water supply and a high content is detectable in blood.
The city now is working to replace nearly 20,000 of all its service lines by 2020.
Last week, research from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering led by Edwards showed that federal standards were being met and that five rounds of citizen-led testing would cease.
Meanwhile, the fallout from the water crisis continues.