Podcasts about eyes don't see a story

On the 6th anniversary of the start of the Flint Water catastrophe, Michael Moore is joined by with pediatrician who first exposed the high levels of lead in Flint's children, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha. Dr. Mona is a pediatrician at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, a professor at Michigan State University and the author of "What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City." Dr. Mona, who was recently diagnosed with Covid-19, gives an update on where things stand in Flint and makes the connection between what happened in Flint and what is now happening with the coronavirus pandemic. ********************** Read Dr. Mona's book, "What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City." https://bookshop.org/a/1381/9780399590856 or https://amzn.to/2SdesXo To help the children of Flint, Dr. Mona suggests visiting: http://flintkids.org/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rumble-with-michael-moore/message

Hey guys, trying something a little different this week. I (Clare) recorded the the reading collection I wrote about the Flint Water Crisis for use in classrooms. Reminder: Other episodes of this podcast ARE NOT intended for use in classrooms. We drop so many f-bombs, guys. Sources: Anna Clark, "The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy" Mona Hanna-Attisha, "What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City" Visit the Website! rudehistoryeducation.wordpress.com Got Something to Say to Us? rudehistorypodcast@gmail.com Social Media! @rudehistory on twitter, instagram, and facebook rudehistoryeducation on tumblr

Dr Mona-Hanna Attisha , the pediatrician whose press conference and testimony before Congress alerted the public about the Flint, Michigan water crisis and the author of BGSU's 2019-2020 Common Read, What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance and Hope in an American City and Dr. Karen Johnson-Webb, associate professor of geography at BGSU, whose research includes racial disparities in health, discuss environmental racism and the Flint water crisis.     Transcript: Introduction: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, this is BG Ideas. Musical Intro: I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Welcome to the Big Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr Jolie Sheffer, associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today we're joined by Dr Mona-Hanna Attisha and Dr. Karen Johnson-Webb. Dr Hanna-Attisha is a pediatrician who's press conference and testimony before Congress alerted the public about the Flint, Michigan water crisis. She's the author of BGSU's 2019-2020 Common Read, What the Eyes Don't See A Story of Crisis, Resistance and Hope in an American City. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Dr. Johnson-Webb is an associate professor of geography at BGSU. Her research includes racial disparities in health. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Thanks for joining me today. Mona Hanna-Attisha: It's great to be with you. Karen Johnson-Webb: Thanks for having me. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Mona you played an important role in alerting the public about the Flint water crisis and advocating for the city's residents. Can you begin to just tell our audience how you began practicing medicine in Flint and how that led into your involvement in the water crisis? Mona Hanna-Attisha: Yeah, so I first got a flavor of medicine in Flint as a medical student. So I went to Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine and it's actually the first community based medical school. So the medical school is founded to really kind of serve the rest of the state, and Flint was one of its original campuses. So as a medical student over 20 plus years ago I was in Flint for my clinical training and that's where I really fell in love with the city and I fell in love with the discipline of pediatrics. I then went to Detroit for about 10 plus years to do my residency at the Children's Hospital in Michigan. And then in 2011 I had this amazing opportunity to come back to Flint to give back to the city that really gave me so much and to serve as their pediatric residency director, which means I got to oversee the training of future pediatricians. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Okay. How did you first learn about the possibility of elevated lead levels in Flint's water supply? Mona Hanna-Attisha: So I learned about the issue of lead kind of late in the story. So in April of 2014 Flint changed their water source from the great lakes, which we had been getting for over half a century to the Flint River. And this was done while we were under kind of state appointed emergency management and it was all about saving money. So that happened in April of 2014 and there was kind of concerns from the very beginning about things like color and odor and taste and bacteria. And throughout this time all the people in power said everything was okay. So I was telling my patients for about a year and a half when they came in with concerns about the water, that everything was okay because all these really important scientists were saying everything was okay. But that all changed when I heard about the possibility of lead in the water. And that happened in the summer of 2015 and not in clinic and not in kind of my office, not the hospital, but actually in my kitchen at home at a barbecue with a high school girlfriend who of all things happened to be a drinking water expert. And at that time she alerted me to the possibility that hey the water is not being treated properly and because of that there would be lead in the water. Dr Jolie Sheffer: I think this is one of the important parts of your story is that you were uniquely qualified to do something, but you learned about this through a matter of just your social network, right? Just your human connections to neighbors and friends. And I think that's something that we'll talk more about, but the ways in which being an actor or making change is not necessarily because you planned to, but because you're the right person at the right time in a particular place. Mona Hanna-Attisha: Absolutely right person, right time, right place, right team, right training, right background or experiences that prepare you for these moments, which you can never plan for. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Okay. Karen, your background is in geography. Can you tell us about how you came to focus specifically on black infant mortality and maternal health and how these fit into geography? Karen Johnson-Webb: Well, I'm probably one of the few people you'll meet with three degrees in geography. Most people sort of trip into geography. And I did as an undergrad. I'm also an alumni of Michigan State University- Dr Jolie Sheffer: Go Green! Karen Johnson-Webb: -Department of Geography. And when I decided to do my Masters, Dr John Hunter, an imminent, very famous medical geographer, made his presentation to the grad students. All the faculty were sort of cycling through and I said that's what I want to do. And I've always been interested in issues of race, racism and how it impacts people's everyday lives. And when I moved, my family's from Michigan, but I grew up in Washington, DC, but came back to Michigan State to go to college. And when I came back after getting my PhD and everything and started just trying to tool around for an idea of what to research locally, I found that, I looked at a map of the United States mapped by state with infant mortality and you expect to see high rates in the South, but I didn't expect to see Michigan and Ohio pop out like Mississippi and Alabama. And that was very curious to me. Karen Johnson-Webb: And then another coincidence, during winter vacation one year, I read a little blurb in the Toledo Blade that said that the Public Health Department had gotten a grant to study lead. Not lead, to study black infant mortality. And so I called the guy, I just called him and I said, "Well, I'm a health geographer. I'd really like to add my expertise to this committee." And that's how it started. I started working with Lucas County Public Health, the Ohio Equity Institute, OEI, was part of the grant. And there the disparity, the gap between black and white infant mortality is, it's phenomenal. And especially in Lucas County for a couple of years it was really wide. It was 14 infant deaths per 1000 births, live births for blacks, dead infants, 14 dead infants compared to 0.1 per 1000 for whites. And there's no way to explain that by just controlling for education, income, mom's visits, is mom smoking, et cetera, et cetera. Karen Johnson-Webb: And so now scholars are starting to look at toxic stress on the mom's body and not just stress experienced in her lifetime. We're talking about stress that's passed down generation to generation. So, that's sort of the long version. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Can you say a little more about that, Karen, and how kind of toxic stress is related to environmental racism and structural racism more generally? How do we understand the role of racism in the physical health of families and communities over generations? Karen Johnson-Webb: Structural racism as opposed to individual racism, which most people, most everyday people would think racism is about I don't like you because you're black. I don't like you because you're Asian, et cetera. That's individual where feelings are involved, perhaps. Structural racism has to do with structures and systems that were put in place intentionally over hundreds of years in this country that were designed to subjugate black people, to rob them of their wealth or their ability to gain wealth through many things, education, jobs, what have you, and these systems continue. Not only do you have a situation where you have families who have not been able to provide wealth to their future generations, but these systems continue to persist. And it may be intentional, but it may be unintentional, like the school system, the public school systems. I don't think there are teachers or administrators who are there to subjugate black children. However, we're all placed in a situation where, because of the way the housing market was structured by policies of the US government, you have poor black people pooled together in cities. You had massive white flight, which was subsidized by the US government. And you've got children that are attending substandard schools because of the way that the taxation system is set up, none of which is their fault. Karen Johnson-Webb: And so those are the types of things that you have policies that have the effect, perhaps not the intent, but the effect of poor education outcomes, poor health outcomes, poor political outcomes, poor environmental outcomes, et cetera. Dr Jolie Sheffer: So those policies that you're talking about in terms of land ownership, private property have to do with who was eligible for mortgages, right? Karen Johnson-Webb: Yes. Dr Jolie Sheffer: As a result of changes in mid century, about redlining and blockbusting- Karen Johnson-Webb: That's right. Dr Jolie Sheffer: -that kept those mortgages and that wealth contained in certain neighborhoods that only certain people were eligible to buy in. Karen Johnson-Webb: That's right. Dr Jolie Sheffer: So that's what you're talking about there. But this also has very material effects on health in terms of the quality of the land that is available. Historically we think about valuable land versus bottom land and how the landscapes that we live in are highly racialized as well. Karen Johnson-Webb: Exactly. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Which property was kind of already toxic in some ways that oh, that is available to be sold cheaply to people of color. Whereas the more valuable property is redlined only for white owners. How does that work in Flint in particular, Mona? Mona Hanna-Attisha: That's absolutely part of Flint's history and it's part of the history of so many of our urban communities. This is not unique to Flint. This happened throughout our nation. There's a whole chapter in my book really dedicated to that history and how really recognizing and digging down into that history helps us understand why the crisis happened and where we are today. There's a lot of history in the Flint story because if we fail to look back and recognize a history it's impossible for us to move forward. So that's what Flint's history was all about. Mona Hanna-Attisha: So Flint had this huge period of prosperity. Lots of folks came for automotive jobs. The birth of General Motors was in Flint. People came for living wages and great jobs and great infrastructure and great schools. And there was quite a bit of prosperity. African Americans and the great migration North, they came to Flint because it was better than the conditions in the Jim Crow South, but it was still not equal conditions. And then after that, through policy decisions and manmade decisions, there was disinvestment. Plants closed, jobs were lost, people who had the power and the privilege to leave the city left the city. And what was left was poverty and things like violence became epidemic. And all these significant disparities that directly impact the health of the people in the city. So these were all men made policy decisions that can be traced back to these examples of structural racism. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Talk to us a little bit about the kind of backlash and criticism you got for whistle blowing. Mona Hanna-Attisha: Yeah, so you know, one of the reasons I went into pediatrics and went into public health is because part of that profession is being an advocate. That's why I was drawn to that profession to be able to use my voice to help elevate the children's voices and to elevate what they need to be healthy and successful. So throughout this whole process I have been and continue to be very much doing my job as a pediatrician. So when the opportunity came to share our research findings that were, was not unexpected, there was more blood, more lead in the blood of Flint kids. I never should have had to do that research. We should have known just by what was in the water that this should have been a hard stop. Mona Hanna-Attisha: So when that research was clear, that science was clear, there was no other option than sharing that data and as quickly as possible. So in for us academics, we usually go through something called the peer review process where we publish our data and present at conferences. That takes a really long time and our kids really didn't have another day. So I literally walked out of my clinic with my white coat on and I stood up at a press conference to share these findings and I felt great. I'm like, this is awesome! I'm protecting kids, I'm being an advocate because that's what being a pediatrician is all about. So I felt good for like a half an hour and then the state and really every arm of the state said I was wrong. They said that I was splicing and dicing numbers, that I was an unfortunate researcher, that I was causing near hysteria, which is also quite sexist. Mona Hanna-Attisha: And I was preparing myself for a backlash because everybody who had raised their voices in the story had been denied and dismissed. The moms, the activists, the pastors, the journalists, the water experts, everybody had been silenced and attacked. So I was prepared for trying to prepare myself, but nothing can really prepare you for that personal backlash. And I felt sick. My heart rate went up, I wanted to throw up, my hands were shaking. A part of me said to myself maybe I made a mistake. I began to second guess myself. Maybe I shouldn't have gotten involved. Maybe I should have just gone about my busy job as a mom, pediatrician, professor. Why did I get involved in this? And that lasted a short period and it was the quick recognition that they could go after me all they want because this had nothing to do with me, but everything to do with the children, the children of Flint who I'm privileged to serve. So it was as if those kids just kind of lifted me up and helped me fight back. And at that time a growing team was kind of around me and the media started paying attention. Dr Jolie Sheffer: There were a couple of things they're worth spending some more time on. One is the role of journalism, right? We're in a time where we tend to think of, there's a lot of criticism of the media and yet both of you are talking about the ways in which journalism has been absolutely essential in keeping democratic processes working. So Karen, can you talk a little bit about, back to how you first learned about infant and maternal mortality rates in Toledo. What have you seen as the role in the media in kind of keeping the spotlight on some of the inequalities happening locally and around the country? Karen Johnson-Webb: Well I've seen some fair reporting in terms of quoting the, it's called the Toledo Lucas County Public Health Department. And a lot of the efforts to fight black infant mortality have been centered on a safe baby sleeping, which about 12% of infant deaths are due to safe, unsafe baby sleeping. So there's this huge gap or this huge proportion of deaths that are more related to low birth weight births and prematurity. And that's where the, in terms of my own research, where looking at stress that is basically day to day stress that people are living under because of where they live, because of where they were born, because of what family they were born into. And in Toledo people are talking about social determinants of health. But it's very hard to get at, especially if you're under public funding and you want to study that's going to be crisp and clear with numbers. That's, it's very difficult to get a report out that might be easy for people to consume. Karen Johnson-Webb: And so consequently most of the focus has been on the safe baby sleeping and what the mothers can do better, which, could also be mom blaming. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Blame the victim. Karen Johnson-Webb: Yeah, blame the victim for whatever she's doing, smoking, being obese or- Dr Jolie Sheffer: A kid getting lead poisoning. You didn't wash his hands enough. Karen Johnson-Webb: Exactly, exactly. But there are so many good people that are working hard to drive these rates down and are trying new things. And my own research where I did qualitative interviews, long conversations with black women who are residents of Lucas County about their life. It was basically a conversation. And I heard Dr Mona talk yesterday about ACEs, adverse childhood experiences. And this is also another buzz word along with social determinants of health, but it's a very serious consequence of structural racism for black children. Dr Jolie Sheffer: And explain for our listeners what kinds of events are ACEs? Karen Johnson-Webb: Well that's very interesting because I was sitting in a dissertation proposal defense and the student listed some, had a slide, a PowerPoint slide and divorce was there. And my parents were divorced, but I never, I wouldn't have called it an adverse childhood experience, but it was. But there were also things like malnutrition, seeing someone murdered- Dr Jolie Sheffer: Abuse, neglect. Karen Johnson-Webb: -knowing someone who's been murdered, treatment by the police, poor schools, things that go on in school because you don't know or you haven't been treated for whatever it is that's keeping you from performing and also they could be trauma. What it is, is trauma, traumatic experiences. And you could be experiencing traumatic experiences in your own family. And we can look at some of those things of how are people coping with their stress? Maybe not in the best way. Dr Jolie Sheffer: And what we find, right, is that children exposed to multiple stressors like this, it ultimately has an effect on brain development- Karen Johnson-Webb: Yes. Dr Jolie Sheffer: -and biochemistry that can lead to these longer term health effects like perhaps high blood pressure or other things. Mona Hanna-Attisha: Heart diseases and infant mortality has been shown to be very graded and predictable. The more and more of these early adversities you have really in this critical window of early childhood in a very graded and predictable way you'll have more kind of risk taking behaviors, more chronic diseases, and actually decreased life expectancy. Dr Jolie Sheffer: And one of the things that what both of your work really shows is that the way we think about race, racism and social policy is completely backwards in this country, that we focus on the consequences of these systemic issues, right? We focus on the single child who's a behavioral problem. We focus on the individual house that has lead paint, right? Rather than recognizing that the reason there's a higher rate of incarceration or a higher rate of untreated mental illness is actually goes way back to these systemic- Karen Johnson-Webb: It very well could. Dr Jolie Sheffer: -childhood stressors that may have affected brain development and health. Karen Johnson-Webb: That's right. Mona Hanna-Attisha: It's looking upstream. So as a pediatrician, I can, I can bandaid kids that come in with gunshot injuries and we do, but it's asking those questions like, why is this happening? Why do we have this inaction on policies that are preventing children from getting hurt? So it's taking, it's being more curious. It's asking those bigger questions of why and looking at what's happening at the systemic policy level. Dr Jolie Sheffer: And once we sort of know the why, one of the things that I think both of you are really interested in is what is, how do you then tell the story that explains for people the connections and convinces them of what the policy solutions should be. So for me, that's very much related to the relationship between data, the kind of quantitative and narrative stories. So Dr Mona your book is very much about combining these. Can you talk about how you think about the relationship between the quantitative data and the qualitative stories of individual patients? Mona Hanna-Attisha: Yeah, that is a great question. And it's so critical to influence these policies. We have to be equipped with all these different tools of communication and persuasion to share what we want to share. So in my press conference that I had, I had graphs and I had data and I had P values and I had statistics, everything that you're supposed to have as a researcher. But I also had a story and I had a picture of a child and I held up a baby bottle filled with Flint water because I knew that if I was going to move some people, some folks aren't going to be moved by the data and the science, but some folks will be moved by me telling you the story of a little girl who was using Flint water to mix her powdered formula who was waking up at night and her mom was getting warm water from a tap that hadn't been flushed and she was filling her bottle and that's all she was consuming for the first six months of her life. So we have to be able to navigate both worlds, to share a narrative and to influence decision makers. Karen Johnson-Webb: Dr Mona did such a fantastic job of telling a story. And stories resonate with people. And that's what I hope to do with my research because many people are very resistant to hearing about racism, thinking about racism, especially if they can't see it or they've never experienced it, or they don't know how it's manifesting. Things that people go through, things that people are experiencing, children are experiencing in their everyday lives, will resonate. We've seen it over and over again with things. The events at the US/Mexico border when children, when we started talking about children, people got outraged. Dr Jolie Sheffer: There's something quite different from the abstract to the concrete, right? Karen Johnson-Webb: The stories matter. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Right. It's easy when you're focusing on numbers to forget that each number is attached to a real person with people who love them, with hopes, with dreams, ambitions. Karen Johnson-Webb: That's right. Dr Jolie Sheffer: And what we, and part of what you're both talking about is good research uses all the tools available. Karen Johnson-Webb: That's right. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Not only to do the research, but to communicate it, right? Karen Johnson-Webb: That's exactly right. Dr Jolie Sheffer: That we need to collect good, rigorous data, right? Mona Hanna-Attisha: Right. Dr Jolie Sheffer: We need to use proper protocols and ethical standards and all of that, but we also need to be able to share that information in a way that connects with people because otherwise we can't make the policy. Mona Hanna-Attisha: You got are exactly right. And I had the privilege of being involved in the March for Science and one of the reasons I got involved was really to push my fellow academics, my fellow scientists, my fellow researchers, my fellow doctors that hey, you're doing great work, but you're publishing in journals that nobody reads. That's okay, you need that for promotion and tenure and all these other things we have to do. But if we want to, for example, influence what people think about vaccines or about the climate crisis, we need to get out of our cozy ivory towers and step into the often uncomfortable spaces of, for example, capitol buildings or media places and share that science. We need to do a better job communicating the value of our work. Dr Jolie Sheffer: We're going to take a quick break. Thanks for listening to the Big Ideas podcast. Introduction: If you are passionate about Big Ideas, consider sponsoring this program. To have your name or organization mentioned here please contact us at ics@bgsu.edu. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Welcome back to the Big Ideas podcast. We're talking to Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha and Dr Karen Johnson-Webb about environmental racism and the Flint water crisis. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Dr Mona, what role do economic decisions make in these cases of environmental catastrophe? Can you talk us through some of the financial decisions that were made that led to this crisis in Flint? Mona Hanna-Attisha: Yeah. You know, people often ask me who are the villains in this story? And they want me to name people and I share the real villains are these concepts of, for example, austerity and that we should minimize taxes and tax on big government and all these different things. And what happened in Flint was driven by this ideology of austerity, which means to save money. It was all about saving money, saving money, saving money. Because of Flint's history, because of that loss, that tax base, because of these kind of structural racist decisions, the city was unable to support its infrastructure. Not only its water infrastructure, but it's policing and public health and all these other really critical things because bizarrely we base those things on tax bases. And that led Flint to be in this near bankruptcy state. So because of that economic state the government took over. The state came in, appointed a financial emergency manager to balance the books and to cut costs. And that's how the decision was made because they thought we would save money if we stopped getting water from the great lakes. And it now evidently had become too expensive for this predominantly poor minority near bankrupt city. And to save a few bucks we transitioned to the Flint River without proper treatment. Dr Jolie Sheffer: And remind us what the consequences of that are in financial terms now. Mona Hanna-Attisha: Probably in the billions. So there's probably been at least a billion dollars in aid that has come into Flint from the pipe replacements to the national guard to the water delivery to the filters to expanded Medicaid to early intervention services, school health, nutrition programming, literacy support. I mean the list goes on and on of the resources that are not even enough yet because this is a longterm issue that has happened as a result of this kind of cost-saving move. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Do you see similar things at work in terms of our local region in terms of short term thinking that has much longer term costs? Karen Johnson-Webb: Absolutely. In Toledo it's widely known, published in the local paper, that we have a lead problem in old housing stock. Old housing stock that's situated in the inner city is mostly rental property and children who are on Medicaid get tested for lead. However, children that are not, don't. And there hasn't been a real push to get them tested. And the Toledo city council did pass an ordinance to clean it up and the landlords went crazy and said, "We can't afford this." And so it's just sort of been sitting. It was rescinded by a judge or something like that. I did read recently that the city council received a grant to start mitigation. It's not going to be totally taken out of the houses, but it's going to be covered up. And it's been left to the churches to try to organize teams of people to go in and clean those houses out. And so yeah, and it wasn't even a burden on the city. It was a burden on people who chose to be landlords. In my mind, if you choose to be a landlord and something's wrong with your property, oh well you're supposed to fix that. Mona Hanna-Attisha: So there's a long history of not taking action, of being very kind of shortsighted when it comes to lead. There's one of my favorite quotes from a scientist in 1969 he, when he was referring to lead poisoning he said, "The causes and cures are so well known that if we fail to take action we deserve all the social crimes that will come with it." This is 1969. Mona Hanna-Attisha: Post Flint there was a great report from Pew and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that looked at just the economics of lead. There's actually folks called lead economists and they in this great report said that we would save our nation $80 billion a year if we eliminate lead exposure in terms of increased economic productivity, decreased special education costs, decreased healthcare, behavioral healthcare costs, decreased criminal justice costs. So we actually even have the economic arguments, which you'd figure would move policy makers, but unfortunately those savings are not seen usually past the life expectancy and the term limits of those policymakers. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Well and that leads to this question, right? That we do know the economic costs. We do know the benefits that would occur if we actually invested in some of these remediations now. And what you're talking about is so much then what do individual citizens do? So what can individual citizens, like our students, like our neighbors, what can be done to actually influence some of these policy decisions? What can be done in Toledo, Karen? Karen Johnson-Webb: Well, I'm kind of a gadfly. I tweet, I write, I call my senators, I call my representatives. I don't know how much good that does. Mona Hanna-Attisha: It does a lot of guns. Karen Johnson-Webb: It does? Mona Hanna-Attisha: Karen is civically engaged. Karen read a newspaper article and she called the person in the article and she got involved in her community. So do what Karen is doing. Walking into this interview, we passed a voter registration table. That's awesome. So vote, vote, vote, vote, take five friends with you. Commit to doing that. So that's all part of being part of the political process and influencing policymakers. Hold them accountable. You voted them in. Set up meetings with them. Ask them if they're going to fund these kinds of really critical preventative public health interventions. So there is a lot that people can do, especially young people. The movements that are happening right now are being led by young people. Karen Johnson-Webb: That's right. And they're on Facebook and they're on social media and there's a way on Facebook, you can, you go through a process where you're just not somebody posting on your senators page. You are a constituent because you've given your zip code or something like that. And they're notorious for, I mean, they have to pay attention to their constituents, especially if there are enough of them. Dr Jolie Sheffer: And I think that's one of the things that's so important here that like Mona you are a national figure now, but you were involved in local politics, right? This was a local issue. And Karen, you're talking about the local city council, right? These are things that you don't have to go to Washington DC. It may be down the street. Mona Hanna-Attisha: Literally down the street. Dr Jolie Sheffer: It may be in your neighborhood. Mona Hanna-Attisha: And that's the lesson of this book and my story is that there are injustices everywhere. You just have to open your eyes to them. But it's not enough to be awake. You have to take action, even if it's hard or scary, even if your heart rate goes up and your stomach hurts, you have to do it. You can't stay silent and close your eyes to these issues. Dr Jolie Sheffer: And I think it's also important to know that you don't have to feel like you're an expert in all of it to be able to do something about it, right? Karen Johnson-Webb: Right. Mona Hanna-Attisha: Absolutely. And then the really awesome thing, which is also part of my story is find friends, make friends with people who are different then you like drinking water friends from high school and environmental engineers and geographers and people from all these different disciplines. So you don't have to be that expert but find all kinds of different friends and then your work is so much more powerful. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Mona and Karen, we have some students in the studio who'd like to ask you some questions. Musical Intro: I'm Haley Kurtz, a first year student at Bowling Green State University. And my question for Dr Mona is what can this generation of future doctors, leaders and educators do with the lessons and values in your book to help make our lives and the lives after us better? Mona Hanna-Attisha: Hailey, that is an awesome question. Thank you. There is so much that you can do and I think one of the biggest lessons of this story in this book is the recognition that you have power. You are a powerful person and you can make a huge difference. So I think what I would like you to take home is having that kind of self esteem and that self efficacy that I can make a difference. Mona Hanna-Attisha: When I was in high school, when I was in college, when I was in medical school, people kept telling me you can change the world. And I believed them. Like I really believed that I could change the world. But throughout that training I also garnered a lot of critical skills and tools and communication and research and science and advocacy to enable me to change the world. So always believe in yourself and always believe that you have the power to change the world because you can and we're going to be watching you. Ezra Wilder: I'm Ezra Wilder, another first year. And my question for Dr Mona is how do we as educators and social workers better advocate for the kids that and the communities that we hope to work with? Mona Hanna-Attisha: That is an awesome question. So how do we be better advocates? And I think I would share kind of what I shared earlier is do it with friends. Find your village. So often when we are advocating for something or we're fighting for something, we feel like the weight of the world is only on our shoulders, that nobody else cares about what we care about. And what I learned through this whole process like, oh my God, other people also care about kids and people that I didn't even think cared about kids like water engineers cared about kids. Who knew? That's awesome! Geographers cared about kids. So find those folks because when you are feeling down they will help lift you up. You want to have people who have your back and you want to be part of a larger team. A movement. This story is so much of a story of the power of individuals coming together and making a difference. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Do you want to add anything about working with advice, for working with marginalized populations? Karen Johnson-Webb: Well that, I have found that to be very important. I went and I joined that group, it's changed names. It's now called Getting to One and I haven't been back to it since school started, but yes, and hearing stories and hearing what it was from the ground level of what really needed to be addressed. There's nothing that substitutes for that. The numbers represent people and their experiences and what they are experiencing. And in order to help them you have to find out what exactly they need help with and how you can intervene on that. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Yeah, I think what you're pointing out and you're working with qualitative data, right? You're talking to people, right? It's not standing for people. It's listening to them, learning from them rather than thinking you're the expert coming in. Karen Johnson-Webb: That's exactly right. Dr Jolie Sheffer: And solving it. I think that's important. Mona Hanna-Attisha: Jolie, I completely agree with both of you. This is all about partnerships. This is all about working together. This is about us as academics and doctors and professionals stepping off our pedestals and working humbly shoulder to shoulder with impacted communities. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Mona and Karen, on behalf of ICS and BGSU thanks so much for talking with me today. We really enjoyed hearing more about your research and your work. For those in the audience, if you're interested in learning more about Dr Hanna-Attisha and the Flint water crisis please read What the Eyes Don't See or listen to the audio book read by Dr Mona herself. Dr Jolie Sheffer: Our producers for this podcast are Chris Cavera and Markham Mendoza. Audio engineering is by Jacob Sidell. Research assistance for this podcast was provided by ICS intern Emma Valandingham. This conversation was recorded in the Stanton audio recording studio in the Michael and Sarah Colleen Center at Bowling Green State University.      

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is a pediatrician and a public health advocate whose research helped expose the Flint water crisis. Dr. Mona is founder and director of the Michigan State University and the Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative, an innovative and model public health program in Flint, Michigan. In this episode, Dr. Mona shares how she became an advocate for the people of Flint during the water crisis, and discusses the community-centered work that is creating a better future for families and children in Flint today. For more information and full episode transcription go to Contagious Conversations (www.cdcfoundation.org/conversations).   Key Takeaways: [1:12] Dr. Mona discusses her background and career path. [3:13] A pediatrician’s job is to be an advocate. [3:50] What Mona loves the most about being a pediatrician. [5:01] Becoming an advocate during the water crisis in Flint. [8:20] Why is lead so dangerous for children? [9:22] There is no safe level of lead. [11:22] Lead as an environmental injustice. [12:04] Alice Hamilton, a hero in the battle against industrial poisons. [13:40] Why the story of Hamilton resonated with Dr. Mona. [18:13] What the Eyes Don’t See, Dr. Mona’s book. [20:54] Dr. Mona talks about her work at Michigan State University. [21:28] The Flint water crisis: a crisis of trust. [25:11] The success of the nutrition prescription program. [26:25] All kids need great nutrition, early education resources and access to health. [27:03] How can we inspire people to play a larger role in improving the health of their community? [28:05] Community work in Flint and how this is making an impact. [30:15] How is the situation in Flint today? [32:15] Other health challenges Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha wants to tackle in the near future.   Mentioned in This Episode: CDC Foundation What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance and Hope in an American City Answer this episode’s question: How have you made an impact on your community? Email your answer to info@cdcfoundation.org and win some CDC Foundation merchandise.

(Episode is mostly in Chinese) Today's topic is drinking water (飲用水)! In the United States, we are (for the most part) incredibly lucky to have safe, potable water by a quick turn of the faucet. Curious about which government entity regulates and establishes federal standards for drinking water? Historically, it's been the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). The states and public water systems are then tasked with enforce the standards and regulations. George Chien (錢宗駒) is an engineer with the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA). A native of Taiwan, he came to the US fifteen years ago to pursue an interdisciplinary graduate degree in Environmental Engineering and Management. In our chat today, George shares with us his perspectives on being a civil servant, and also teaches us the steps of bringing water from reservoirs through to your tap. A written interview with George about civil service in CA: https://www.twreporter.org/a/opinion-us-civil-servants. Cynthia's book recommendation: What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City, by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha. This book is one of my favorite reads from 2018. If you're at all interested in water/health/environmental policy or local/state/federal policy making, this is a great account. It's written in a memoir-style by the pediatrician who correlated the blood lead level rise in her patients in Flint, MI. She sprinkles personal stories as well, for those interested in hearing immigrant stories (like me!). She was born in the UK to Iraqi parents, she grew up in the Detroit area and has strong ties to Michigan. *** Say hi! 來打招呼！ Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: @twdiaspora. hello@taiwanesediaspora.com www.taiwanesediaspora.com

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, author of What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City, joins us for an interview about the importance of storytelling in public health. Did Dr. Mona's successful use of narratives allow Flint's story to be as resilient as the people who lived it? Links Is water in Flint safe to drink? It’s not just a question of chemistry. [Op-ed by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha] What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City

Today was day three of the annual meeting! We started the day with awards ceremony and concluded with the member assembly, listening to many great speakers in between. For many, the highlight was the Dr. Katherine Kelley Distinguished Lecture delivered by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha. Dr. Mona is a pediatrician, scientist, researcher, activist and author of What the Eyes Don’t See. Her research and the work of her team exposed the deliberate effort to cover up the Flint water crisis and the lead poisoning of Flint, Michigan's children.  APHL honors public health leaders at 2019 annual meeting What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City

This week we dig into the Flint water crisis: what happened, how it got so bad, what turned the tide, what's still left to do, and the mix of science, politics, and activism that are still needed to finish pulling Flint out of the crisis. We spend the hour with Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha, a physician, scientist, activist, the founder and director of the Pediatric Public Health Initiative, and author of the book "What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City".

We talk to Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the pediatrician who first proved that Flint’s kids were exposed to lead about her new book What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City.Links: https://inquiring.show/episodes/2018/4/1/171-siddhartha-roy-the-science-behind-the-flint-water-crisis

“Flint is a story about what happens when the very people that are charged with keeping us safe care more about money or power than they do about you or your children,” says Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha.   Known as “Dr. Mona,” the pediatrician came to national prominence for exposing the water crisis in Flint, Mich., caused by high lead levels, and standing up to government officials who tried to downplay the seriousness of the contamination. In the aftermath, she become a passionate voice for speaking out against what she – and many others – have accurately termed “environmental racism.”   “We know what lead does to our kids,” she says, “and it affects our most vulnerable children, be it in Flint, or Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philly or Baltimore or Chicago.”   Rachel Maddow has called Dr. Mona a “badass” for her unwavering commitment to the people of Flint, and she is the recipient a Heinz Award for her work in public policy. The author of “What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City,” she was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People.”   Dr. Mona shares her journey as the child of Iraqi scientists and dissidents who fled Saddam Hussein’s regime, and describes the moment the magnitude of Flint’s water crisis fully hit her and why speaking up was “a choice-less choice.”   Hear the story behind one of the most passionate public health advocates of our time, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, on this episode of “We Can Be.”   “We Can Be” is hosted by The Heinz Endowments’ Grant Oliphant and produced by the Endowments and Treehouse Media. Theme music is composed by John Dziuban, with incidental music by Josh Slifkindental music by Josh Slifkin.