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 From June 2014 to November 2015 Michigan's Genesee County, which
includes Flint, had 87 cases of Legionnaires', 10 of them fatal. The
outbreak began weeks after a switch in Flint's water supply that
also led to lead contamination.
Health and environmental officials have said the new water supply
meant treatment changes that could have inadvertently led to a
proliferation of Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires'.
But the root of the Legionnaires' outbreak was never determined and
Genesee County Environmental Health Supervisor Jim Henry said that
is because the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality blocked
his office's attempts to get national health authorities involved.
"Our whole team was angry... You could see that there was a
intentional, deliberate method to prevent us from doing our job,"
Henry told CNN on Saturday.
 He said his office had urged involvement of the Centers for Disease
Control, or CDC, but the DEQ prohibited further communication on the
matter.
"They prevented that team from coming here and helping us to find
the source," Henry said. After that, he said, there more cases of
Legionnaires' in the summer of 2015, four of them fatal.
A CDC spokeswoman said the body was approached by Genesee County
health officials in February 2015 about Legionnaires', but state
officials told the agency they would handle the investigation
themselves.
The head of Michigan's DEQ was fired over the Flint water crisis and
Stephen Busch, a district manager in the drinking water division,
has been suspended. Emails released to the public show Busch tussled
with Henry over Legionnaires', saying it was premature to link the
outbreak to the water system change.
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Michigan's Republican Governor, Rick Snyder, has faced pressure to
resign over the crisis and is scheduled to testify to Congress over
the matter next month.
Asked for comment on the CNN report, Snyder's spokesman Dave Murray
said, "There are a number of investigations into all that
transpired, including a Flint Water Task Force created by Gov.
Snyder. It would be inappropriate to get in front of that important
work."
Flint switched its water supply from Detroit to the Flint River in
April 2014 in a cost-cutting move when the city was under a
state-appointed emergency manager. More corrosive water from the
river leached lead from city pipes, causing a serious public health
threat.
Legionnaires' disease can lead to severe pneumonia, respiratory
failure, kidney failure and septic shock.
(Reporting and writing by Fiona Ortiz in Chicago, Editing by W
Simon)
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