Like the water disaster itself, the frightening outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in the Flint area was another example of government at its worst, emails obtained by the Detroit Free Press show.
Matthew Dolan, Elisha Anderson, Paul Egan and John Wisely of the Detroit Free Press report:
In sum, a review of the e-mails provided by Genesee County from several public-information requests appear to illustrate the inability, if not unwillingness, of city and state agencies to share information with the county as it investigated multiple Legionnaires' cases. The clash among bureaucrats went on privately for months despite growing fears inside Flint among residents that something was deeply wrong with the city's drinking water.
“We are very concerned about this Legionnaires’ disease outbreak,” Laurel Garrison of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote to Genesee County health officials in an April 27, 2015, e-mail. “It’s very large, one of the largest we know of in the past decade, and community-wide, and in our opinion and experience it needs a comprehensive investigation.”
Legionnaires’ disease is a pneumonia caused by bacteria in the lungs, and some have suspected it is linked to the dangerous Flint drinking water.
Genesee County normally saw between 6 and 13 cases a year, the Freep reports. But in 2014 and 2015, a totatl of 87 cases were reported, 10 of which resulted in death.
In 2014 and 2015, ., the number jumped to 42. In 2015, there were 45 confirmed cases.
