Researchers See Grim Toll on Fetuses From Flint Water

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Two researchers looked into whether tainted water in Flint, Michigan, had any effect on the city's fertility rate, and the resulting data led them to a chilling assessment: "This represents a couple hundred fewer children born that otherwise would have been," says David Slusky of Kansas University in a release

The working paper, which hasn't been peer reviewed, found that fertility rates in Flint dropped 12% and fetal death rates rose by a "horrifyingly large" 58% after the city switched to the Flint River as its source of public water in 2014. (Fetal deaths refer to miscarriages after 20 weeks, explains Michigan Radio.) The switch led to tap water with elevated levels of lead. Specifically, the paper found that "between 198 and 276 more children would have been born had Flint not enacted the switch in water," per the Washington Post.

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