ISTOCK, EHRTIFIn 2014 and 2015, an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease killed 12 people and infected at least another 87 individuals in and around Flint, Michigan. Low chlorine levels in the water supply were probably to blame, researchers reported Monday (January 5) in PNAS.
The problem began in 2014, when the city’s water started coming from the Flint River rather than Lake Huron. Soon after, hospitals reported an increasing number of cases of Legionnaires’ disease, and residents noticed their tap water was dirty, smelly, and contaminated with lead and another heavy metals. Still, the link between the Legionnaires’ cases and the switch in water source was not clear.
Michele Swanson, a microbiologist and immunologist at the University of Michigan, and her colleagues compared cases of Legionnaires’ in Genesee County, where Flint is located, and two neighboring counties against water chlorine measurements from several sites in Flint. They concluded that 80 percent of the cases were a result of the change in Flint’s water source. The team also found that ...
