Flint Water Crisis: Doctor, Mom Win Top Courage Awards

WEST BLOOMFIELD, MI – Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the West Bloomfield pediatrician whose study of high lead levels in Flint children last year blew open a public health crisis of monumental proportions, and former Flint resident LeeAnne Walters will receive the Freedom of Expression Courage Award from a prominent literary and human rights group.

PEN America announced Friday that the women will be honored on May 16 Literary Gala at the American Museum of Natural History.

Hanna-Attisha and Walters were two essential voices in exposing the lead poisoning of Flint’s water supply, calling out the grave damage to public health in a majority black community where about 40 percent of the population lives in poverty, PEN America said in its announcement.

SEE ALSO

• Pediatrician Exposed Crisis of Lead in Flint Water

A mother of four, Walters demanded that the city test the discolored water coming from her taps. The tests revealed lead levels far beyond the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s permissible limit, and her 4-year-old son, Gavin, was diagnosed with potentially irreversible lead poisoning.

Despite the test results and Walter’s public protests to the Flint City Council, the city denied that it faced a serious water crisis. Walters then put in hours of research — uncovering glaring gaps in the city’s testing and corrosion control protocols — to take directly to the regional EPA, which then engaged experts from Virginia Tech to lead a study that uncovered lead throughout Flint’s water supply at levels up to twice what the EPA considers toxic waste.

The Virginia Tech water study tipped off Hanna-Attisha, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Michigan State University and clinician at Flint’s Hurley Medical Center, who surveyed the hospital’s records of blood lead level testing in the city’s children.

Her results revealed the number of cases of lead poisoning in children had doubled since Flint began drawing water from the Flint River in 2014 as part of a cost-saving move while the city was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager.

Her research, presented at a September 2015 news conference, was dismissed as “unfortunate” and “near hysteria” by officials with the Department of Environmental Quality, which has shouldered most of the blame for the state’s failure to respond to the crisis in a more timely manner.

A week later, state officials capitulated and confirmed Hanna-Attisha’s findings, eliciting assistance from the Red Cross and National Guard, and a January 2016 declaration by President Obama of a State of Emergency in Flint.

“Dr. Hanna-Attisha spoke out for one of the country’s most vulnerable populations,” Andrew Solomon, president of PEN America, said in a statement. “She bypassed standard channels to take on a malevolent state bureaucracy, undermining its assertion of official inviolability.

“Her success in drawing public attention to Flint’s unfolding health crisis reflects the power of free expression to force unsavory facts out into the open. In speaking truth to power, she has saved innumerable lives.”

The PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Award was established in 2014 to honor exceptional acts of courage in the exercise of freedom of expression. In 2015, the award was presented to the surviving staff of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, sparking a global public debate on the limits of satire and free expression.

» Photos via PEN America