Genesee County Health director Jim Henry tells CNN in an exclusive interview he believes deaths could have been prevented, but the health department could not get help from the state of Michigan or the Centers for Disease Control to find the source. Eventually, 87 people got Legionnaire's and nine died.
Henry, who was a supervisor at the time of the outbreak, says state officials purposely kept the CDC away once the county wanted to look at the highly corrosive Flint River as the Legionnaire's uptick began. The state had decided to switch the water supply source to the Flint River, and soon brown water began flowing from taps in the city.
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"Frustration is an understatement," Henry says. "You could see that it was an intentional, deliberate method to prevent us from doing our job."
Apparently, the CDC has to be ‘invited’ to come visit a state and state officials — Republicans — made sure this did not happen. Willful interference in a public health crisis of their own making. They knew and expended effort to prevent rectification of the issue, costing lives.
They had opportunities to save people’s lives and worked against it.
That is the GOP agenda, naked and right there out in the open.