Courtesy of Jordan Chariton
Investigative reporter Jordan Chariton with his new book, We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans.
A decade after the Flint water crisis began, a new book chronicles the devastating impact on the city’s residents and how local and state officials covered up the disaster.
We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans was released Tuesday, and the 346-page book by investigative reporter Jordan Chariton features new bombshells that raise serious questions about the handling of the health disaster.
The book also demonstrates that the catastrophic impact of the poisoned water continues today, even after local and national reporters have virtually stopped covering the crisis.
Chariton calls the Flint water disaster “the biggest government cover-up this century.”
One of the biggest revelations is that state officials, including then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, knew that the water was tainted long before alerting residents. The book also features exclusively obtained, confidential testimony from Snyder, who claimed under oath that he couldn’t recall details of the crisis and contradicted his congressional testimony.
Chariton, an independent investigative reporter, also alleges in the book that Snyder lied about not knowing about the deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak.
The book also explores Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s controversial decision to “shitcan” the criminal investigation involving city and state officials accused of covering up the crisis.
Chariton, a frequent critic of corporate media, also casts blame on local news outlets for repeatedly failing to adequately cover the crisis. He writes that reporters often regurgitated local and state officials’ false claims while ignoring evidence that the water was poisoned.
Chariton is a former producer for Fox News and MSNBC, and says he visited Flint 21 times; interviewed countless residents, investigators, and local and state officials; and combed through tens of thousands of records to write the book. At the time, he was writing news stories about Flint’s water for The Guardian, The Intercept, Vice, and Metro Times.
“I didn’t even think about writing a book until about two years ago,” Chariton tells Metro Times. “I was getting frustrated because I had written several major stories about the cover-up. But it wasn’t really getting the reach that I wanted. I got so much information, and frankly I believe bombshell after bombshell of blatant corruption, so I thought the best way to tell this was through a book.”
Chariton says the book is more than a retelling of a catastrophe.
“I believe the book outlines very meticulously a pretty sinister conspiracy between public officials, Wall Street banks, and the state government,” he says. “I believe it really reveals in a timeline format the biggest cover-up this century. I don’t mean to be dramatic. I don’t know anything else that has killed so many people.”
Chariton also scoffs at the state’s official claim that only 12 people have died as a result of the poisoned water.
“It is unknowable how many people died from this because it has caused so many different health problems, from kidney and liver failure to cancer, which is surging right now in Flint. Legionnaires’ deaths could be in the hundreds,” he says.
As he knocked on doors to interview residents, Chariton said he began to notice an unusual number of deaths of people in their 50s and 60s.
The book, he says, is bigger than Flint.
“In the broader psyche of America, when you think of a government coverup, a lot of older people think Watergate,” he says. “But I believe the Flint water cover-up makes Watergate look like child’s play. I say that because Watergate was a bunch of numbskulls screwing around. It didn’t kill anyone. Whereas with this, you have government officials, as it’s detailed in the book, knowing the water is unsafe while telling residents the water is safe. You have a governor who is aware the water is unsafe but is not taking action.”
One of the still-unraveling tragedies, Chariton says, is the children who have been impacted from lead poisoning. Lead is highly toxic to the brain, nervous system, and other organs, especially in infants and young children. Even at low levels, lead is linked to reduced IQ, ADHD, irreversible brain damage, classroom problems, and even criminality and poverty. Lead can also cause headaches, hearing loss, and hyperactive behavior.
There is no safe level of lead, and even a small amount can cause irreversible damage, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Despite the government-caused disaster, residents are not getting the help they need because there’s no access to free medical care, Chariton says.
“There definitely is a lost generation,” Chariton says. “There are people dying slowly without the necessary health care because they can’t afford it. It’s really jarring. I saw people I’ve met in 2016, and I saw them two years later, and they looked like they had aged 10 years.”
Chariton cautions that the failure to hold anyone accountable for Flint sends a dangerous message.
“If the people who are responsible for this get away with this, it’s the playbook for everywhere else,” Chariton says.
The forward to the book is written by Erin Brockovich, an American legal clerk and environmental activist who became famous for her role in building a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) of California in 1993.
“Maybe we got comfortable, maybe we became complacent, or maybe we bought into the illusion that some Superman was out there about to fly in and save us all,” Brockovich writes in the forward. “But now we are seeing that there is no wizard coming to our rescue. In reality, it’s up to us to find our courage, to use our hearts, and to think for ourselves.”
The Flint water crisis began when the city, while under state emergency management, switched its drinking water supply to the Flint River to save money in 2014. The decision created one of the nation’s worst public health disasters in decades, contaminating drinking water with dangerous levels of lead.
State officials ignored signs of serious health hazards in the predominantly Black city and failed to implement corrosion-control treatments, causing lead, iron, and rust to leach from aging pipes into the water supply.
In 2018, Chariton launched Status Coup, an on-the-ground, investigative journalism company on YouTube. It has nearly 200,000 subscribers.
