Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/638181
ByEdWhite TheAssociatedPress DETROIT Onelawsuitseeks to replace lead-leaching wa- ter lines at no cost to cus- tomers. Another seeks money for thousands of Flint residents who unwit- tingly drank toxic water. A third complaint has been filed on behalf of people with Legionnaires' disease. While government offi- cials scramble to rid Flint's tap water of lead, victims are suing Gov. Rick Sny- der, the former mayor, rank-and-file public em- ployees and almost anyone else who may have had a role in supplying the trou- bled city with corrosive river water for 18 months. The lawsuits accuse them of violating civil rights, wrecking property values and enriching themselves by selling a contaminated product. "How can they look at themselves in the mirror?" asked New York attorney Hunter Shkolnik, who filed the latest lawsuit Monday on behalf of 2-year-old So- phia Waid. "It's an embar- rassment for government officials to take the safety of their citizens so lightly." Sophia's father, Luke Waid, said he feared los- ing custody of his daughter when blood tests revealed that she had elevated levels of lead. Those tests were done long before Flint's tap water was identified as the culprit in 2015. Lead affects the cen- tral nervous system, espe- cially in children aged 6 and younger, and can cause learning problems and hy- peractivity. "She's constantly on edge," Waid said of his daughter. "It's almost like she's suffering some kind of anxiety." His lawsuit, which seeks an unspecified financial award, is one of at least seven complaints involving Flint in state and federal courts. It's the first by Shkol- nik and Detroit co-counsel Brian McKeen, but the law- yers plan more. Separately, 1,700 households have con- tacted Michael Pitt's De- troit-area firm about join- ing the class-action case he filed in November. The city's supply was switched from Detroit wa- ter to the Flint River as a cost-saving measure in 2014, when Flint was un- der state-appointed emer- gency management. While key facts are undisputed — the untreated river water caused lead to leach from old pipes — these cases still are no slam-dunk for law- yers specializing in per- sonal injury. State government has defenses, especially a long- recognized cloak of immu- nity in certain lawsuits, said Chris Hastings, who teaches at Western Michi- gan University Cooley Law School. "Defense lawyers aren't going to come in and say these cases don't have any merit based on the facts," Hastings said. "They're go- ing to come in with narrow, technical defenses that ex- ist regardless of those is- sues. Courts are good at set- ting the emotions aside and looking at the law." But, he said, victims can point to "gross negligence" as a path around govern- mental immunity. "That's probably the best angle," Hastings said. "But it's likely, with the wide net that's cast, that a number of defendants will still have a 'we-didn't-do-it' defense." No substantial responses have been filed. In one law- suit, a federal judge has granted a request from the attorney general's office to give Snyder and state em- ployees more time to ex- plore legal defenses. Snyder spokesman Dave Murray declined to com- ment, saying it would be inappropriate for the gover- nor's office to discuss pend- ing litigation. In 2013, a judge rejected a class-action lawsuit in the District of Columbia on be- half of children who may have been exposed to lead in water in Washington. The lawsuit said the D.C. Water and Sewer Author- ity hid elevated lead levels from customers and fed- eral authorities between 2001 and 2004, and failed to take steps to remedy the situation. The complaint followed a study by Children's Na- tional Medical Center and Virginia Tech that determined hundreds of children were at risk of health and development problems linked to lead. Virginia Tech is also in- volved in studies of Flint water. Separately, attorney Geoffrey Fieger is suing a hospital and various public officials over Legionnaires' disease, not lead. Genesee County had an extraordi- nary spike in cases of the waterborne lung disease while Flint was relying on the Flint River for its wa- ter supply — at least 87 con- firmed illnesses, including nine deaths. "The more I read and learn about this, the an- grier I get. ... I can no lon- ger stand on the sidelines and watch this debacle un- fold," said Fieger, who is representing three people who survived pneumonia and the family of a fourth who died. Follow Ed White at http:// twitter.com/edwhiteap . TROUBLED CITY LeadcontaminationofFlintwaterdrawslawsuits By Lindsey Tanner The Associated Press CHICAGO Surgery patients fared just as well when ju- nior doctors worked longer than mandated hours in the first major rigorous test of regulations many physi- cians say hurt medical ed- ucation. Nationwide limits on work hours were estab- lished more than a decade ago because of concerns that sleep-deprived medi- cal residents were a threat to themselves and their pa- tients. To test that, researchers randomly assigned more than 4,000 surgery resi- dents to regulation hours or a more flexible sched- ule that allowed them to continue with a case af- ter their shifts ended. That sometimes meant working for more than 28 hours at a time. The study looked at how many patients died or had serious complications in the month after surgery and found the same low rate — about 9 percent — in both groups. Residents' self- rated dissatisfaction with their education and with their well-being were sim- ilarly low — 11 percent and roughly 13 percent respec- tively in each group. It's a landmark study, testing "a hot button, con- troversial issue in health care," said lead author Dr. Karl Bilimoria, director of surgical outcomes and quality improvement at Northwestern University's Feinberg medical school. Without flexibility, rookie doctors often have to end their shifts in the middle of caring for patients, handing them off to another medical resident. That can happen at crit- ical times, disrupting the doctor-patient relationship, Bilimoria said. "Our hope would be that the evidence would be used ... to change policies fairly soon and allow flexibil- ity back into surgical resi- dency," he said. Residents' work limits were first set in 2003 by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Edu- cation, and revised in 2011. The rules include 80-hour maximum work weeks. The group said it will consider the results as part of an ongoing review of resi- dents' work hour standards. The council, the American College of Surgeons and the American Board of Surgery paid for the study, which was published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. The study involved al- most 139,000 patients treated at 151 hospitals na- tionwide. A Mayo Clinic neuro- surgery resident, Dr. Maya Babu, said the study results were not at all surprising. She's head of an American College of Surgeons' resi- dents group. Under the limits, Babu said she has sometimes had to clock out at inopportune times, even in the middle of brain tumor operations, missing important learning opportunities. She said if allowed flex- ible hours, most residents would know when to speak up and say they're too tired to continue working. The rules affect medical school graduates involved in residency training pro- grams in hospitals. The rules include shift limits of 16 hours for junior res- idents and 28 hours for senior residents; 8 to 10 hours off between shifts, but 14 hours off after a 24- hour shift. Half the residents worked under those lim- its in the study. The flex- hour group could work lon- ger hours with less time off between shifts, but both groups worked under the 80-hour-per week limit, av- eraged over four weeks. Dr. John Birkmeyer, a surgeon and health out- comes policy expert at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Med- ical Center, said in a journal editorial that the study "ef- fectively debunks concerns that patients will suffer as a result of increased hand- offs and breaks in the con- tinuity of care." But Birkmeyer opposes easing work limits and ad- vocates medical training that doesn't "depend on overworked resident phy- sicians." Many would love to hear "'we can take care of this case without you. Go home, see your family, and come in fresh tomorrow,'" Birk- meyer said. STUDY Rookie doctors can work longer flex hours safely THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Luke Waid discusses the lead contamination in Flint's water as he watches his 2-year-old daughter, Sophia, and infant son, Luke Jr., in their Flint, Mich., home, in this image from video. Thankyou! PLEASE RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER. By Russ Bynum The Associated Press SAVANNAH, GA. The mos- quitoes that spread the Zika virus are among the hardest species to fight be- cause they live and breed in tub drains, dog bowls, buckets, flower pots and other places inside the houses and yards of the people they bite. Bug experts and mos- quito control officers from across the U.S. are attend- ing the American Mosquito Control Association's an- nual conference in Savan- nah, which started Mon- day. They say Zika-carry- ing mosquitoes are tough to reach with sprays be- cause they breed so close to homes. Mark Cothran is mos- quito control director for Gulf County, Flor- ida. He says fighting mos- quitoes requires labor-in- tensive, door-to-door ef- forts to get homeowners to empty standing water from containers. American Mosquito Control Association tech- nical adviser Joe Con- lon says it can be diffi- cult to get homeowners' cooperation because "in the U.S., we don't like the government in our houses." ANNUAL CONFERENCE Living with people they bite, Zika mosquitoes hard to fight Find us online! Endsnoring An estimated 80 million people in North America snore. Taking into account the snorer's spouse and children, as many as 160 million people are negatively affected by snoring. Snoring not only interrupts your sleep cycle, it can also be a symptom of a condition called sleep apnea. Fortunately, there are cost-effective oral appliances for snoring and sleep apnea that dentists can prescribe to their patients. 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