I didn’t want to post any ornery blogs, but the news coming out of Flint, Michigan needs to be spread far and wide.

Reading online about the lead poisoning of young children in an attempt to save money makes me angry. This week I’ve been thinking a lot about how amazing the water is coming straight out of the tap here in Sweden and I was going to do a funny blog about all the funky tap water I’ve had over the years (quite a lot all over the world). Then I looked at the news and saw that children in Flint were suffering brain damage caused by tap water. Tap water…

The politician who decided it was wise to switch from a water system that was well documented to be safe for consumption to a cheaper alternative that ended up eating away at old pipes, leeching lead into the water supply; may or may not have known early on that this was happening. Even so, how do you enact a change of this magnitude without sufficient research into the possible ramifications of the change? Shouldn’t ensuring the health of the public be the highest priority?

This man is still in office and is requesting federal relief. His financial savings has now caused irreparable damage to the public and now will require massive amounts of Federal funds for damage control. Some savings that was…

As far as I can tell, he’s not yet faced any consequences for making this decision. Furthermore, how about the Department of Health and Human Services? It appears they obstructed outside researchers from verifying the problem, thusly delaying public notification and increasing the damage to the public.

How can people willfully, knowingly poison entire neighborhoods? Have we as a society become so desensitized to the needs of our fellow countrymen that this is considered normal to some? Is saving face more important than having an informed public?

How is this any different from when Chinese manufacturers supplemented baby formula with melanine and poisoned babies to save money? We loudly condemned that, but where is the nation wide call to arms over this? Who will be held accountable and how will they fix this?

I obviously don’t have the whole story on this and I’m sure there are extenuating circumstances — there always are. Nonetheless, as I fill my water cup in the tap; it saddens me that parents in my own country have to second guess whether that same action will harm their children.

If you want a more thorough review of the news on this (I am no investigative journalist) there are many articles available. I found this one to be particularly disheartening:

www.flintwaterstudy.org

Until next time…