Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Death Toll From Legionnaires' Outbreak During Flint Water Crisis Could Be Devastatingly Worse Than Previously Reported
PBS NewsHour: Flint's Deadly Water
A FRONTLINE investigation uncovers the extent of a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak during Flint's water crisis — and how officials failed to stop it. (9/11)
The Washington Post: Frontline's Flint Water Crisis Report Links Dozens Of Deaths To Legionnaires
For years, state health officials in Michigan have set the official death toll for the Legionnaires’ outbreak amid the Flint water crisis at 12 people. But during the roughly year-and-a-half the outbreak spanned, Frontline reporters found that 115 people in Flint died of non-viral pneumonia. The stark difference in numbers, along with evidence culled from court records, internal emails among state government officials, interviews with victims and data analysis, suggests there were dozens of deaths that stemmed from undiagnosed and untreated cases of Legionnaires’ disease that ultimately fell outside the state’s official count (which, per standard public health reporting methods, only counts people diagnosed with Legionnaires’ who either died in the hospital or within a month of leaving it). (Bellware, 9/11)
