Associate Professor Sammy Zahran is the lead author of an article about the study being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). Professor David Mushinski is a co-author.
Based on a detailed statistical analysis of multiple datasets by Zahran and his co-authors, the Flint Area Community Health and Environment Partnership (FACHEP) found that the majority of Legionnaires’ disease cases that occurred during the 2014-15 outbreak in Genesee County, Michigan, can be attributed to a change in the City of Flint’s drinking water supply, from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Zahran and Mushinski have been able to ascribe 80% of Legionnaires’ cases in Flint Michigan from 2010-2016 to the change in Flint’s water.
“This is really an extraordinary piece of research,” said Lynn Goldman, Dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.
“This is a big deal,” Janet Stout, research associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. “The link to the impact of the water quality on the outbreak has been something that has never been seen before or explored in the level of depth as this investigation.”
The SOURCE story published on Monday 2/5/18 is being picked up by news outlets nationwide. Check out the SOURCE story here. Quotes above were taken from the BuzzFeed article published 2/5/18.