Things is Flint, Michigan are going from absurd to really, really bad. A couple of years ago the city government of Flint diverted the water supply from the clean Detroit water supply to one that primarily drew from the Flint river. They apparently never bothered to test the water for chemicals and naturally industrial toxins like lead – in water that ran through one of the largest automobile manufacturing cities. Lead has no known biological function, so ANY lead in the body is considered toxic. Years ago, the lower limit of acceptability for kids was about 10 mcg/dL but studies demonstrated decreased intellectual capability in children with levels even less than that, so the current standard is to get the lead level in children less than 5 mcg/dL. Apparently 4% of the 840 children that were tested had blood lead levels higher than that. The people of Flint are pretty angry about it and they are right to be angry.
