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Flintleadpoisoning:LivingwithuncertaintylongtermCNN.com

Flint and lead poisoning: Living with it and

uncertainty, long-term
By Jen Christensen, Sara Sidner and Mallory Simon, CNN
Updated 1332 GMT (2132 HKT) March 5, 2016

Flint resident lives in uncertainty after lead exposure 02:16

Story highlights
Surrounded by lead paint and gas, anyone who
lived through the 1960s and 1980s had some
lead exposure
"It's hard to know what a 'safe' level of
exposure is" for adults
There are no safe levels of lead for children; in
the U.S. half
a million children may have levels
Home
that are too high

(CNN)Aaron Stinson does whatever he can to stay

healthy. He exercises regularly. He avoids sweets. He
drinks only water.
"I consume a lot of water. I try to live a healthy lifestyle
so I try not to drink too much pop," Stinson said. "This
is a lifestyle with me, I consume a lot of water, all my
friends and family know that about me."
The problem is Stinson lives in Flint, Michigan, born
and raised. The water he constantly consumed for his
health may hurt it, permanently and for generations to
come.
Lead, as we now know, contaminated the water there.
Stinson is one of many Flint residents who tested
positive for lead exposure.

"Putting water in my body is something that is supposed to be pure," Stinson said. "It is a little hard for me
to wrap my mind around it."
At first Stinson didn't think much about the sharp stomach cramps that bothered him throughout the day
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and woke him up at night. It left him tired. Strange

pains strained his muscles and joints. He blamed it
on something he ate. "I don't eat beef or pork, but I
thought maybe it's the chicken or fish," Stinson said.

Related Article: Flint water crisis: Families

bear scars of disaster

Flint resident Aaron Stinston's love of water exposed him to lead.

When news started trickling out last January that there might be something wrong with the Flint water
Stinson drank constantly, he still didn't put it together. But when his pain didn't go away, his girlfriend urged
him to tell his doctor about his water habit.
Stinson's doctor ordered a test for lead poisoning. He got a call a couple of days later.
"She talked in a soft tone," Stinson said. "I was kind of nervous, (like) anytime a doctor calls you back with
blood tests." His results concerned his doctor.
Scientists consider less than 10 micrograms per deciliter of lead in the blood "normal" for adults. Stinson's
blood tested at more than two times that, at 27.
He asked the doctor what to do. She handed him a pamphlet and told him there wasn't medicine to treat
lead poisoning at that level. She told him to drink orange juice, consume protein and under no circumstance
should he drink the tap water. "I'm angry, I'm upset," Stinson said. "I could end up dying with this toxin put
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in my body, it could hurt my organs, it could take my

memory. It is a scary thing."
"I want someone to explain to me what is going on,"
Stinson said. "How do I stay healthy at this point?"

Related Article: Flint water crisis timeline:

From early concerns to lead poisoning

Lead has a toxic effect on the nervous system and it

affects muscle movements. "It could also be lethal in
terms of impacting the brain and nervous system,
depending on how much or how quickly the
exposure occurs," said Dr. Peter LeWitt, a
neurologist at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Long
term, lead exposure may be connected to an
increased risk of Parkinson's and prostate cancer
and it may affect the health of a person's unborn
children.

"It's hard to know what a 'safe' level of exposure is," LeWitt said. "Any of us from the 1960s through the
1980s had a lot of exposure due to paint and leaded gasoline, for example." But acute exposure to a
concentration of lead could cause damage even in a few hours.
"Water is a particularly noxious way of getting it into the system," LeWitt said. But as far as Stinson's future,
he is "in a zone of uncertainty for medical management," LeWitt said. "Fortunately a level like that will go
down if the exposure goes away," he said. Adult bones can naturally process some of the toxin out of the
body, but it can cause damage along the way. Much is still unknown. Science "needs to answer the
question, 'What are the consequences and how can we monitor this over time?'" LeWitt said.
For children, whose bodies and brains are still developing, lead poisoning can be even more devastating.
Tamara Rubin knows that all too well. The Portland environmental activist and filmmaker visited Flint last
week to raise awareness about lead exposure and to help residents get tested. She has spent more than a
decade navigating a medical and education system that isn't prepared to cope with lead poisoned children.
Of her four children, three experience the long-term
health consequences of lead poisoning. Two became
exposed after accidentally inhaling fumes from an
open flame torch a painting contractor used to work
on their home in 2005. He was using the torch to
remove the lead paint off their historic home. Being at
different ages when they experienced the acute lead
exposure affected them differently. Unlike with adults,
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said,
there is no safe blood lead level in children.
With at least 4 million children living in U.S.
households that expose them to lead, there are
Related Article: How to help with the Flint
about half a million kids aged 1 to 5 with blood levels
water crisis
above 5 micrograms per deciliter, a level that requires
medical intervention. But since the poisoning often
happens without obvious symptoms at first, lead
poisoning often goes untreated. Globally, childhood lead exposure is labeled a major public health concern
and is believed to contribute to 600,000 new cases of intellectual disabilities every year, according to the
World Health Organization. Some studies have even linked lead exposure to a rise in violence in cities such
as Chicago.

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Three of the Rubin children, Charlie, Avi and A.J., have been affected by lead poisoning.
Rubin's children had clear signs of exposure.
Avi, who is now 11, was diagnosed with a brain injury due to lead poisoning. His mother said his IQ tested in
the 130 range, which puts him one level below genius. But he struggles with word recognition and is
learning to read at the age of 11. He is social, but it's hard.
"He has a lot of trouble with impulse control," Rubin said. "He wants to play advanced games with his peers,
but it's not easy for him."
Three schools rejected him last year and a school that specialized in behavioral disorders that did offer to
take him wasn't a good fit. He's in a special needs class, but it's not the best fit. A school Rubin felt would
be appropriate told her he would need too much one-on-one attention. "His problems are too unique. He
apparently doesn't fit in the right box with (these particular) mental challenges caused by lead," Rubin said.
A.J., who was 3 years old at the time of the lead exposure, has trouble with his teeth, pain in his bones and
has constant stomach troubles and struggles to eat. Charlie, Rubin's youngest, has severe ADHD and rarely
sleeps.
In the last three years her children have missed more
than two years of school combined. Because they
have missed so much school, the lead poisoning has
also had an emotional and economic impact on the
family. As computer consultants, Rubin and her
husband get paid by the hour. Spending so much
time managing her children's challenges, this middle
class, college educated family found the bank
foreclosing on their house and they wound up on
food assistance.

Related Article: Why lead is so dangerous

"Fortunately, I'm smart enough to know that I won't

let this take it all away," Rubin said. So she formed
her nonprofit to help other mothers in her

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circumstance and made a documentary about her

family's struggle with lead poisoning.

for children

Traveling around the world, she has met many other

parents who talk about the "lifetime of challenges" lead poisoning has left them. Many parents, she said,
don't want to think their child could have lead poisoning.
"There is so much shame and blame around lead," she said. "Other mothers tell me their city or state
officials have essentially told them they weren't doing a good job parenting. They hear messages like 'You
need to wash your kid's hands more,' or 'Send them to day care, rather than let them play at a home that
may have lead paint.' These parents are made to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable and they shouldn't be.
Lead is all around us."
Lead has left Rubin's children with much uncertainty, but she vows to fight on behalf of the millions of others
poisoned. "It's hard to know what their future holds," Rubin said. "I hope and pray that they will be OK, but
we can't know."

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Stinson said he won't ever know when he can trust

what comes out of the tap. "Every day when I wake
up I have to remember: 'Don't put your toothbrush
under the faucet'" as his parents taught him, he said.
"I want everyone in America to think about Flint when
they do that in the morning."

Like with Rubin's family, the health conscious Flint

resident doesn't know what happens next and it
troubles him. "It's hard," Stinson said. "I'm still trying
to deal with it, still trying to understand really how do I go forward. How do I live a healthy lifestyle at this
point going forward?"
Full coverage on the water crisis in Flint

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Cancer drugs thrown away: Why $3 billion in waste?

This is what reading is like if you have dyslexia

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When should you replace your toothbrush?

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