Just an update on the next step in the Flint, MI crisis, from The Detroit News:
Criminal charges leveled Friday against six current and former state employees center around allegations they altered or concealed alarming reports showing high levels of toxic lead in Flint’s water and the bloodstreams of the city’s children.
Attorney General Bill Schuette’s prosecutors contend much of the cover-up occurred on or around the same day in late July last year.
At the Department of Health and Human Services, prosecutors allege employees Nancy Peeler and Robert Scott “buried” an epidemiologist’s July 28, 2015, report showing a significant year-over-year spike in blood lead levels in Flint children.
Corrine Miller, the state’s top epidemiologist, later ordered a DHHS employee to delete emails about that July 28 report and prevented action to alert top state health officials and the public, Schuette said.
A Genesee County judge on Friday authorized charges against Miller, Peeler and Scott for misconduct in office, conspiring to commit misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty related to allegedly concealing or disregarding the test results.
Special Prosecutor Todd Flood’s investigation also found that on same date, three municipal water regulators at the Department of Environmental Quality altered a water-testing report to exclude some samples to keep overall lead levels under the federal limit.
Schuette filed charges against DEQ water quality analyst Adam Rosenthal on Friday for allegedly altering the report in coordination with water regulators Stephen Busch and Michael Prysby, who were charged with similar misconduct crimes in April as part of the attorney general’s wide-ranging investigation.
It occurs to me to wonder: it’s not unheard of to subject potential employees to various tests, such as polygraphs (dubious as they may be), as a condition of employment; and folks seeking admission to the Bar in Minnesota are required to pass an ethics test. I wonder if people working public safety jobs, such as these people, are given ethics tests, and if not, why not? This appears to be a failing of ethics, and since a failure in that area could result in severe injury or death, it would seem appropriate to test for the specialized ethics knowledge peculiar to their work.
I will be morbidly interested in hearing the motivations of these individuals, if found guilty, particularly of Miller, the head epidemiologist. The actions described sound deliberate, and if guilt is found, I’d hope for severe sanctions.
(h/t Steve Benen)
