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GUEST: Gerald Markowitz, Distinguished Professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. He is the co-author with David Rosner, of ‘Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children’.

Just two days before the New Hampshire primary race, Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton visited the town of Flint, Michigan, where a tragic and entirely preventable man-made crisis of lead contamination in the water has afflicted residents. Clinton has urged lawmakers to give the town $600 million in federal aid.

But no amount of aid can undo the damage that lead does, especially on children. My guest, Gerald Markowitz, along with his co-author David Rosner described the devastating impact of lead on children in a new article:

“As little as a few specks of lead in the water children drink or in flakes of paint that come off the walls of old houses and are ingested can change the course of a life. The amount of lead dust that covers a thumbnail is enough to send a child into a coma or into convulsions leading to death. It takes less than a tenth of that amount to cause IQ loss, hearing loss, or behavioral problems like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia.”

Click here to read Markowitz and Rosner’s article just published in Tom Dispatch called Two, Three… Many Flints: America’s Coast-to-Coast Toxic Crisis.