I can hardly stand to pass this along, but here it is:
School-age children affected by the water crisis in Flint, Mich., nearly a decade ago suffered significant and lasting academic setbacks, according to a study released Wednesday, showing the disaster’s profound impact on a generation of children.
....The learning gap was especially prevalent among younger students in third through fifth grades and those of lower socioeconomic status. There was also an 8 percent increase in the number of students with special needs, especially among school-age boys.
....But researchers were puzzled to find that children who weren’t directly exposed to contaminated water at home still faced academic challenges, suggesting there were society-wide ripple effects.
This is from the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago. There's only one problem: it's completely wrong.
I don't blame the Post for this. The study they relied on really did say all this. The problem is that it left out one big thing: At the same time as the Flint water crisis, Michigan changed its educational testing. Scores went down because of the test change, which is why it affected everyone. For example, here's a chart from a paper published in 2023:
Scores dropped everywhere in Michigan when M-STEP was adopted. Nothing special happened in Flint.
So why the increase in special ed kids? What most likely happened was a nocebo effect. This is sort of the opposite of a placebo: it's when people experience something because they were told it might happen. That's the conclusion of the 2023 paper:
Between 2011 and 2019, including the 2014-15 crisis period, the incidence of elevated blood lead in Flint children (≥ 5µg/dL) was always at least 47% lower than in the control city of Detroit.... There is actually an inverse relationship between childhood blood lead and special education enrollment in Flint.
This study failed to confirm any positive association between actual childhood blood lead levels and special education enrollment in Flint. Negative psychological effects associated with media predictions of brain damage could have created a self-fulfilling prophecy via a nocebo effect. The findings demonstrate a need for improved media coverage of complex events like the Flint Water Crisis.
This just kills me every time it comes up. I hate hate hate having to sound like I'm downplaying the effect of lead exposure on kids, which is a serious problem. But the facts are stubborn: the Flint water crisis didn't last very long; blood lead levels in Flint kids changed only modestly; and there's very little reason to think it had any serious or widespread effect on IQ or school performance.
But years of yelling and screaming about how Flint kids have been ruined for life has probably convinced a lot of them that they're ruined for life. With rare exceptions, they aren't, and they never should have been told that.
The lead in Flint's water rose at the same time the water turned brown from all the other crap stuck to the inside of the pipes coming loose. That probably saved a lot of kids from lead poisoning - people don't drink brown water.
Weren't lead levels in kids in Flint pretty similar to those found in kids in the 70s? I wouldn't wish 1970s lead levels on anyone, but as a 1970s kid myself I can say that it didn't destroy our whole generation.
We seem to really struggle with mustering up the willpower to fix an issue without also going into some kind of catatrophizing mode.
This matches well with an observation made by an old friend and co-worker, now dead, about working with the legislature, in which he served a term. He said you can't convince them with facts and arguments. They need to be driven like panicked chickens if you want them to do anything.
In short, it takes a lot to motivate most people to get out of their comfortable ruts. Mere logic, like the Enlightenment pushed? Hardly! How's that working for global warming?
It's got to be some kind of "existential" (sorry) panic, a real "fear for our lives" deal. Otherwise, let's see what's on tonight's Netflix.
Hannah Ritchie's book, "Not the End of the World" is really great for countering the "doom" narrative. But I fear Salamander (and Kevin) are right that facts don't really matter. 🙁
(I'm Generation Lead)
cephalod - It made us on average a little dumber and a little more violent.
Kevin - It really is shocking what goes unquestioned in reporting, as long as it matches audience expectations. Its human nature, I guess, but it is annoying.
Confirmation Bias is as pernicious and omnipresent as the Telephone Game.
I'm older than Kevin, and lived with lead solder in my water pipes and lead paint on the walls. Interestingly, we found that my son and I had measurably higher lead levels in our hair after doing shooting and reloading - and the shooting was all at an outdoor range. Most of the shooting was 22 LR, with only some of it centerfire pistol and rifle. We ended up wearing nitrile gloves when handling components doing reloading. Lead is bad, but it isn't dimethylmercury. Where I live the problem isn't Lead in the water but Arsenic, which is present at a relatively high level in the mountain rivers and lakes here.
A quick note on the way newspapers like the Washington Post cover, and have always covered, topics like this:
The reporter on the Post's report is two years out of college. She's listed by the Post as "a weather and climate reporter."
Translation: Young reporter with no background or experience in the realm of public schools and public school test scores. If an editor was involved in the report, he or she was apparently similarly clueless.
This is an example of performative social concern on the part of the Post. Lower-income public school education has been treated this way by the nation's major news orgs since roughly the dawn of time.
The progressive counterpart to climate change. Science is wrong because it keeps telling me things I don't want to know.