Déjà Vu: Flint Pediatrician Speaks About the Newark Water Crisis
This is a transcript of the video.
This is a community, a large population of people who do not have safe drinking water in America in the 21st century.
This is not right. This should be national news.
The lead levels in the water in Newark, New Jersey, are some of the highest lead-in-water levels of any community right now in our nation.
They are far above the EPA action level, which is not even a health-based action level, and they are threatening and endangering the lives of everybody in Newark who drinks this water, especially the children.
We know there's no safe level of lead because of what lead does to children. It impacts cognition, which means it drops IQ levels, it impacts behavior, leads to things like developmental disorders, attention issues, focusing problems.
I did the research that kind of uncovered the rising blood lead levels in Flint, and when that came out, it was dismissed and denied and attacked by those who were telling us that the water was safe.
So when I come to Newark, it's this incredible sense of déjà vu that I've been through this before. Amazing, heroic residents. Moms, dads. I mean even Newark kids are saying, Hey, there's something wrong with our water, we know the lead levels in the water, and they're also being told that everything is okay, that it's not as big of a problem as they're making it out to be.
Turning on the Tap in America
What Flint has taught us—and really what we've known for decades—is that it's people who are poor. People who are predominantly minority whom have less political power, less clout, are predominantly burdened by environmental contamination.
It is something we need to act on. It's something that we need to truly respect the science on.
If we've learned anything from Flint, Flint was this kind of crazy story where science was denied, and science helped speak truth to power, and Newark is in the midst of another very similar lead-in-water crisis.
This is all of our duty. It is our very civic and human responsibility to stand up and to fight for children no matter who they are and no matter where we are.
That is what it means to be human.
Newark Drinking Water Crisis
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