Mona Hanna-Attisha (Photo: Hurley Medical Center)
Mona Hanna-Attisha (Photo: Hurley Medical Center)
President Barack Obama came to Flint on Wednesday delivering a message of hope. But some were disappointed the talk of hope didn't come with more action.
Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley writes:
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha was torn.
As President Barack Obama offered a weary city words of hope and encouragement, she suddenly heard him say that “as long as kids are getting good health care, and folks are paying attention, and they’re getting a good education, and they have community support, and they’re getting some good home training, and they are in a community that is loving and nurturing and thriving, these kids will be fine.”
And the pediatrician who gained international attention for helping to reveal the extent of the Flint water crisis and who has made developing interventions for thousands of children poisoned by lead-laced water her mission, became worried.
“He was trying to deliver a message of hope, that they’re going to be OK,” she said. “But … They’re only going to be OK — and they’re going to be better than OK — but that can only happen if we get the resources we need to protect them and to make sure we can mitigate the impact of the exposure,” she said. “And that was not guaranteed. He guaranteed us OK, but he did not guarantee us the resources to make sure they’re going to be OK.”
“I talked to a lot of people who were really, really upset” about the president's speech, Hanna-Attisha said, according to Riley. “They were happy until he drank the water and said everything was going to be OK (in the future) because there are people hurting now."
Flint native, filmmaker Michael Moore also expressed his criticism this week about the president's visit.
"He is just trying to reassure people that everything's okay," Moore said on CNN the day the president was in Flint. "To drink from a glass of Flint water when a number of experts are still saying this water's not safe? It's still going through the same corroded lead pipes? It was such a disappointing thing to see."
"Your clip you just showed about he hopes that Flint can get back to where it was. Where was that? You mean before the water crisis two years ago, after we'd lost 75,000 General Motors jobs? Back to then? Or are we talking about back to 20-30 years ago? I mean, Flint is a city that's really been destroyed."
