An investigative science reporting series by Flintwaterstudy.org

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NOTE FOR THE QUEASY:

This blog series involves heart-wrenching whistleblowing—the sort that comes from alleging misconduct of your own professional colleagues for actions harming the public and others. We cannot imagine that any reader is more sickened than we are, by having to air “dirty laundry” that includes sharing personal emails and discussing unethical behavior. But given the continued damage that would arise from remaining silent, we feel morally obligated to present evidence against FACHEP leadership in relation to:

– falsifying qualifications to win a multi-million dollar sole source grant during a federal emergency

– literally making a felony criminal case, out of legitimate criticism directed at their unprofessional work, which is best characterized as narcissistic victimization (a.k.a. “crybullying”)

– spreading malicious rumors, to ingratiate themselves with Flint residents at the expense of others

– violating the ASCE second canon, harming others through their incompetence

– wrongly taking credit for research ideas and data, belonging to others (e.g., Dr. Faust and Dr. Masten)

Please also be aware that FACHEP supporters have been FOIAing Flintwaterstudy, Dr. Edwards, Dr. Masten (MSU) and Dr. Maya Trotz (President AEESP) since Fall 2017. In fact, proving that no good deed goes unpunished, emails of 40+ members of our Flintwaterstudy team have been subpoenaed, for dozens of Michigan lawsuits and criminal cases that we are not even party to. Emails from the FOIA have been misrepresented by FACHEP supporters on social media to denigrate Virginia Tech undergraduate students, Dr. Sid Roy, Dr. Masten and Dr. Edwards. FACHEP faculty have even smeared Dr. Trotz as “unethical.” Dr. Edwards has filed a defamation lawsuit, which is partly related to actions of FACHEP faculty and their supporters as described herein. The facts presented in this series shed light on how such an unthinkable tragedy could unfold.

Cast of Key Characters Parts 1-7

Name	Institution	Role
Dr. Shawn McElmurry	WSU – Civil Engineering	FACHEP’s Founder, Witness in Felony Trials
Dr. Marcus Zervos	WSU – Infectious Disease	FACHEP co-PI, Witness in Felony Trials
Dr. Paul Kilgore	WSU – Pharmacy	FACHEP co-PI, Witness in Felony Trials
Dr. Nancy Love	UM – Civil Engineering	Dr. McElmurry’s Enabler/Defender; Water Filter Research, Engineering Ethics Pontificator
Dr. Yanna Lambrinidou	Parents for Non-Toxic Alternatives	Friend of FACHEP, Adversary of Flintwaterstudy
Dr. Eden Wells	MI Chief Medical Officer	Accused of obstructing FACHEP/justice
Mr. Nick Lyon	MI Health Chief	Accused of obstructing FACHEP/justice
Marc Edwards	VT – Civil Engineering	Flintwaterstudy leader – Author of this blog Series; Potable Water Legionella, Lead, Ethics Expertise
Dr. Amy Pruden	VT – Civil Engineering	VT Flint research co-PI; Potable Water Legionella and Microbiology Expertise
Dr. Kasey Faust	UT – Civil Engineering	PhD work in Flint 2013-2015 on Shrinking Cities; Dr. McElmurry was on her PhD Committee
Dr. Sue Masten	MSU – Civil Engineering	FACHEP Member and Whistleblower; Drinking Water Treatment Expertise

PART 1: Dr. SHAWN McELMURRY

CONSIDERING THE UNIMAGINABLE-DID McELMURRY COMPLETELY FABRICATE HIS STORY OF WORK IN FLINT?

PART 2: FACHEP’S TROUBLED BIRTH

PART 3: FACHEP MAKES A MOCKERY OF ETHICAL CODES—THE WHISTLEBLOWER FROM MSU

PART 4: LOVE THE ALARMIST:  THE REAL STORY ON SHIGELLA AND WATER FILTERS (Pre-FWC to August 12, 2016)

PART 5: TRIAL BY ORDEAL WITHIN AN ACADEMIC BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES

PART 6:  UNFAIR COMPETITION: WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY AND VEGANS DO IT BETTER

Part 7: LOVE THE ALARMIST:  THE REAL STORY ON SHIGELLA AND WATER FILTERS (August 12 TO December 2, 2016)

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PART 8: WHEN LOVE TURNED TO HATE

(December 2, 2016 – December 13, 2016) 

An investigative science reporting series by Flintwaterstudy.org

We first conceived of this blog series as an exposé on the perverse incentive culture of modern academia, as viewed through the lens of FACHEP-instigated felony trials The State of Michigan vs Eden Wells or Nick Lyon. Following the individual strands of evidence has revealed a wicked web of academic deceit and vanity.

For the 3000⁺ Flintwaterstudy readers who open our webpage each week and who made it this far, you are probably wondering when this unfolding nightmare will end. Well, we estimate there are about 3-5 more chapters before we make it to a critical juncture in mid-2017, when we finally decided that it would be unethical for us to remain in denial about FACHEP’s nefarious mode of operation. Then, of course, there will be the actual Wells and Lyon trials.   

The most frequent question from readers, is “How on earth was FACHEP allowed to get away with such behavior?” In Parts 4 and 7 we detailed how Dr. Nancy Love (UM) instigated irresponsible rumors about bacteria and dangers of bathing in Flint. When called upon to correct that and other mistakes, FACHEP faculty unscrupulously refused to do so, by exploiting the vulnerable position of the relief agencies (i.e., their funding sponsor, MDHHS, and to a lesser extent MDEQ, CDC, EPA and GCHD).

We remind everyone that FACHEP was funded by the State of MI, to fill a vacuum of trust created by a failure of government at all levels—the word trust was used 22 times in the FACHEP Phase 2 report, affirming that primary mandate. But FACHEP also knew that they could bump the hair trigger with the prosecutorial laser beam ever-focused on MDHHS project manager Dr. Wells’ forehead, whenever they felt like it, and seemed to relish behaving like insolent junior high students with a substitute teacher. Dr. Wells’ only hope of keeping FACHEP on task and conducting themselves as a responsible partner for public health, was to “plead” appeals to their nobler motives.

Consider that the fiascos of McElmurry’s “low chlorine” false alarms, Dr. Love’s Shigella rumors, and FACHEP’s strategic maligning of anyone standing in their way, would normally have caused termination for incompetence and unprofessional behavior. However, this was not a normal situation. With each FACHEP misstep, they grew increasingly bold in evading responsibility by exploiting a presumption of agency guilt in any dispute. Astonishingly, they even began lashing out with moral indignation, pontification about engineering codes of ethics, and crybullying, rather than swallow the most sugar-coated legitimate criticism. 

With the obvious exception of Dr. Masten, any attempt to appeal to nobler motives went nowhere. We learned that firsthand, as we repeatedly tried to respectfully engage with FACHEP team members through normal channels to no avail. And now we disclose documents that demonstrate behind FACHEP’s unscientific behavior, that there was actually a method to the madness. In particular, McElmurry’s appointment of Dr. Laura Sullivan and Ben Pauli (Kettering University) as designated community trust builders and communicators, would prove to be a masterstroke of devious management strategy.

FACHEP STRATEGY AS REVEALED BY DR. BEN PAULI

Dr. Ben Pauli arrived in Flint June 2015 to work as an Assistant Professor of Social Science at Kettering University. During his PhD work at Rutgers Pauli taught numerous courses including Gender, Social Justice and Marxist Theory, and his research on topics including “Reinvention of Anarchist Tactics in the Twentieth Century” was published in forums like the Journal for the Study of Radicalism. His 2014 dissertation “Modern Rebels: The Political Thought of the New Anarchists,” sought to raise “anarchist thought to the level of intellectual respectability,” with a “hope to inject the New Anarchism’s unique perspective back into political consciousness.”  

Dr. Pauli decided to use Flint as a living laboratory, to put some of his ill-conceived theories into practice, casting himself as the badass political anarchist rebel professor of the FWC post-federal emergency. Dr. Pauli’s high jinks might be laughable, except we still fail to find any humor whatsoever, in manipulating people and the public trust for personal gain in the wake of a disaster.

In June 2018, Pauli emailed several faculty around the country a draft chapter of his book Flint Fights Back, to support FACHEP and friends ever escalating campaign to destroy Dr. Edwards’ professional reputation. Future blogs will expose Dr. Pauli’s intellectual dishonesty and backstabbing cowardice in that endeavor, but herein, we cite the book chapter and verse as obtained by FOIA, because it unabashedly reveals FACHEP’s late 2016 game plan.

Dr. Pauli wrote that he was “trying to integrate myself into the <Flint> activist scene” and “boost my credibility,” when it struck him that:

“there were two things the team <FACHEP> needed to prove…first, that it could accept money from the state while retaining its independence, and second, that it had something to say about the water that was worth hearing.” Further, “..what really began to arouse activists’ sympathies was their burgeoning realization that FACHEP’ s message about the safety of the water was going to be different from that of Edwards.”

Around that time, contrasting perspectives about the safety of the water were being put forth by FACHEP, relative to those of Flintwaterstudy and the relief agencies. Flintwaterstudy was always cautious to avoid any claim of absolute water safety, as illustrated by the following representative statement about bathing: 

It’s important to understand that bathing is never completely a “risk free” activity.  However, the dangers of not bathing are also significant, …<Based on all the data>, we support the current U.S. EPA guidance that indicates bathing or showering in unfiltered Flint water is not riskier than in other cities. (4/25/2016)

Through decades of experience we were humbled to learn that every recommendation carries risks, repercussions and uncertainties. Afterall, bottled water contains potentially harmful plasticizers and bacteria, boiling water or raising the temperature set point of hot water heaters could kill bacteria but create a dangerous scalding hazard, and even carrying cases of water from one place to another could cause bodily injury. We would never claim any water is completely “safe,” and always acknowledge that immunocompromised individuals should consult and follow advice of their physician no matter where they live. 

In contrast, in late-2016 FACHEP began making absolute statements about water safety (see below), apparently to distinguish their message from Dr. Edwards, and eventually support Dr. Love’s emerging new POU filter manifesto boil water “gold standard.” Only a team of Dunning-Kruger potable water experts like FACHEP would claim it is possible to achieve “100% confidence that all water in Flint is safe to drink for all people” or the equivalent of being sure “that the tap water in Flint is safe in ALL neighborhoods for ALL residents.” But as Dr. Pauli proudly disclosed, FACHEP would be willing to do that, and much more, to “arouse activist sympathies.”

VT PRESS CONFERENCE: “FLINT WATER IS IMPROVING”

The FACHEP master plan kicked into high gear immediately after a December 2^nd, 2016 Virginia  Tech press conference that received national coverage and is archived online. Our cautiously optimistic message was that 14 months of outstanding relief work by the disaster response team and the investments of hundreds of millions in engineering improvements, were starting to produce expected improvements in the water.

We stated that Flint “water conditions continue to improve” but “residents should continue to use bottled water and lead filters until otherwise notified by the EPA or the state.” The media correctly reported the appropriate content and tone of our carefully crafted press conference message and the need to keep using filters or bottled water. What could go possibly go wrong?

Well, it turned out that there was yet another dimension to FACHEP’s plotting; specifically, they had committed themselves to “winning over the activists” allied with Mr. Scott Smith (formerly of Water Defense). At that time, Mr. Smith was highly adversarial to Dr. Edwards and Flintwaterstudy, and was supporting claims the water was not improving. Pauli noted that FACHEP wanted to cynically exploit that dynamic to their advantage. Flint activist Melissa Mays was already collaborating with FACHEP’s Dr. Laura Sullivan (Kettering), as illustrated by their “crybully” counterattack on the agencies “wash your hands” campaign back in October 2016. But FACHEP wanted Smith’s public backing.

At the recommendation of Melissa Mays and a few other residents, Mr. Smith engaged with Dr. Pauli in a 3-hour conversation on or about November 30^th, 2016. As we have since reconciled with Mr. Smith, we asked what they discussed. According to Smith, Pauli stated that FACHEP faculty were soon going to inform the public that Dr. Edwards had been “bought,” filtered Flint water was dangerous, and the  State of MI was manipulating Edwards’ test data, press releases and conclusions. At the time, Mr. Smith was rightly skeptical, but he was very pleased to have new FACHEP allies in his confrontation with Dr. Edwards.

In the book chapter, Mr. Pauli does not provide specifics of that conversation with Smith, but did write that obtaining Smith’s endorsement was “premised largely on his perception of my <Pauli’s> trustworthiness,” and acknowledged that Smith somehow believed “our team <FACHEP> was picking up where he <Smith> was leaving off.” Ultimately, FACHEP did indeed, pick up where Mr. Smith left off, but with millions in State research funding and involvement of over 20 PhD faculty, they would destroy public trust on much grander scale than Mr. Smith—without any significant repercussions or apology for doing so to the present day. 

ROLLING OUT THE FACHEP NARRATIVE ABOUT DR. EDWARDS

Still scarred by damage from Dr. Love’s allegations in his D.C. lead crisis battle (i.e., writing EPA that Edwards paying for humanitarian research out of his own pocket was a financial “conflict of interest”), Edwards took unusual steps to ensure there was also no valid basis for such assertions in his Flint work.  Specifically, VT was reimbursed for the months of time Dr. Edwards spent on the relief effort (because he could not teach or conduct other research), but Edwards did not receive any extra salary for that work.  

But for individuals like Dr. Love and her conniving FACHEP collaborators, such facts were no impediment to a rumor campaign. Edwards first starting hearing whispers FACHEP claimed he was “bought” and untruthful around the time Love and McElmurry’s were first visiting Flint homes in summer 2016. The first public written comment suggesting FACHEP might be originating that type of rumor came in an October 19, 2016 social media post from Dr. Laura Sullivan:

I’m so relieved to work with someone who isn’t afraid to tell the truth, in spite of great pressures not to. Shawn, Ben Pauli, Paul, Nancy, Susan, and so many other talented faculty from Wayne State, UofM, MSU, Henry Ford Hospital, and Kettering demonstrate that we can’t be manipulated and we can’t be bought.

On October 28^th, 2016, Dr. Sullivan’s FACHEP hero narrative went further: 

The agencies that should have been attending to this <recovery effort> have epically failed. But hard-headed, tough-hearted researchers from Michigan universities are, I can tell you first hand, setting aside everything including their own families to dig deeply into the concerns raised by activists …<and these heroic> scientists push hard against attempts to minimize issues of importance

We can’t help but agree with a characterization of FACHEP faculty as “hard-headed” and “tough-hearted,” especially in the context of being “stubborn” and “insensitive.”

Then, on December 2^nd, in the aftermath of Dr. Pauli’s meeting with Mr. Smith and immediately after the VT press conference reporting data on “improving” water in Flint, Dr. Sullivan finally lashed out against “a man” who could only be Dr. Edwards:

A man can’t carry the whole truth while his are hands are clenched around money, nor can he deliver the whole truth while his eyes are fixed on fame. Let the debate continue regarding whether or not the water in flint is safe. (12/2)

Notice how Dr. Sullivan’s statement perfectly captured FACHEP’s strategy described in Pauli’s book chapter and in the conversation recalled by Mr. Smith. It not only falsely distinguished FACHEP’s message about water safety from that of Dr. Edwards—he said the water was improving and never claimed it was  “safe.” But it also characterized Edwards as “bought” and “fixed on fame.”

A bizarre irony here is that the FACHEP faculty were liberally accepting extra salary from the State of Michigan and others for their Flint work, and at this point, we feel obligated to painfully remind everyone, that they never lifted a finger to productively help Flint residents until such funding was available. And it was public knowledge that Dr. Edwards was scrupulously avoiding such financial conflicts of interest and had once again paid for much of the Flint work from his own discretionary funds and pocket.

In other words, Dr. Love’s words that damaged Edwards back in 2011, were once again employed to discredit Edwards with Flint residents in 2016. Needless to say, the FACHEP rumors were highly effective, successfully instigating outrage amongst some residents, who naively assumed that PhD FACHEP faculty would not lie so blatantly. Such “New Anarchist” FACHEP tactics were be deployed over and over again, first against the agencies, and from this point forward against Flintwaterstudy.

FRIENDS OF FACHEP PILE ON 

The campaign to win over Smith and his activist supporters, began paying off with brutal FACEBOOK postings by FACHEP friends Melissa Mays and Mr. Smith on December 2^nd, immediately after the VT press conference:

Mays: “Edwards thinks Flint is full of dumb, scared, dirty people….. They need to stop funneling money to paid off experts who will push their lie…The VT studies are funded by the state and the EPA so they are going with a narrative that our water is so much better….They didn’t even talk about Wayne State…. <Wayne State = FACHEP feels> Just like we do, lied about and pushed to the side. Because they <FACHEP> have evidence that goes against what the state is trying to sell people.”

Scott Smith:  Karma, Truth, and Justice will prevail for the residents of Flint as we have facts that are Irrefutable and cannot be comprised by Gov Snyder and his taxpayer funded minions.

Tellingly, Pauli emailed Mr. Smith, just 30 minutes before the above posting on FACEBOOK about “taxpayer funded minions” in reference to Flintwaterstudy, and Pauli also emailed Smith once again a few hours after the posting in relation to a phone call between Mr. Smith and Dr. McElmurry. It certainly seems Dr. Pauli was so pleased with Mr. Smith, that he was arranging a direct call with the big boss man of FACHEP. Pauli elsewhere wrote that about his satisfaction that Smith “praised our <FACHEP’s> work effusively on social media” (text to be presented in a future blog).

After the FACHEP-instigated backlash, Edwards then received an email from a FOXNEWS reporter, claiming FACHEP friend Melissa Mays was asserting Flint water was actually getting worse every day. Now that was a message about water safety that differed from Dr. Edwards data.

Imagine, all the relief agencies work for 14 months, the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars in improvements, and things were actually getting worse every day! Brilliant. Analogous to fire-fighter arson, thank god the crackerjack FACHEP team was on the scene, to heroically douse the flames they had created themselves. 

To support her claim, Ms. Mays distributed a letter from VT, for sampling results that we later learned Mays had falsified by improperly sampling a basement hose bib (i.e., Mays claimed termed it was “sampling her water meter”). Samples collected from hose bibs are improper because they have notoriously high water lead, and doing so violates written EPA and VT instructions to sample only a bathroom or kitchen tap . 

But FOX did not know that, and ran a story December 5^th, 2016, with the title “Is the Flint Water Crisis Getting Worse?,” citing Mays and foreshadowing FACHEP’s counter-narrative. Edwards subsequently shared several conversations with dejected agency relief workers, who realized that with such unscientific messaging, Flint residents would never know who to trust. Our reading of Dr. Pauli’s book and FACHEP’s actions, suggests that was the clear intent, as did what occurred next. 

DR. MCELMURRY: I WILL NOT AGREE FLINT WATER IS MUCH IMPROVED

Dr. Edwards was completely unaware that FACHEP was suddenly courting Mr. Smith and his allies, or that their “message about the safety of the water was going to be different from that of Edwards,” or that they were in the midst of executing an attack against him.  In fact, up to that point, Edwards had numerous conversations with FACHEP’s McElmurry, Sullivan and Pauli, in which they had characterized both Mr. Smith and Ms. Mays as misguided and dangerous.

For instance, in a June 30, 2018, Dr. Pauli privately emailed a number of university faculty, that “it is perfectly legitimate for residents to have criticisms of Melissa. I myself have criticisms of her. I wish she wouldn’t be so reckless about posting things… and I wish that she would admit a mistake once in a while rather than giving her critics even more ammunition by aggressively defending everything she does.”

Both Dr. Sullivan and Dr. McElmurry had encouraged Flintwaterstudy to publicly confront Mr. Smith in May 2016.  Dr. Sullivan even wrote encouraging and thankful comments on the webpage of our blogs doing so, such as  “Thank you for your consistent and accurate information” and “Thank you for setting the record straight, Marc (see below).”

And let’s not forget that McElmurry, enthusiastically agreed to help refute unfounded allegations about dangerous levels of chloroform reported by Water Defense, at a May 2016 press conference hosted by VT in Flint (Watch McElmurry from 24:10-25:10).  

However, that was all back in May when McElmurry and Sullivan wanted to present themselves as responsible researchers to get FACHEP funded. Now that the millions of dollars of grants were secured, in Dr. Pauli’s own written words, they needed to prove “<FACHEP> could accept money from the state while retaining its independence,” and win over a group of “people who saw the state as their number-one enemy.”

On December 8^th, 2016, Dr. Edwards emailed McElmurry, asking if he would publicly agree, that Flint water was “much improved” after the switch back to Detroit water and 14 months of relief efforts. Shockingly, McElmurry wrote that he would not agree to endorse that statement; furthermore, he did not answer a request by Dr. Edwards to discuss FACHEP data that might support his reasoning.  Of course, we now see that McElmurry’s refusal had little to do with either data or truth, and everything to do with politics, strategy and creating a counternarrative.   

THE EMAIL EXCHANGE AS DESCRIBED IN PAULI’s BOOK CHAPTER

According to Dr. Pauli’s draft book chapter, FACHEP immediately began to misrepresent the substance of the written email exchange with Edwards. We reproduce a remarkable section of Pauli’s book in the bold text below, along with a our comments unpacking each gem of anarchist tactical writing:

…<FACHEP> certainly did not want to oversell the <bacteria> risks and cause unnecessary anxiety in people who had plenty of it to deal with already.

Our Comment: Then why did FACHEP repeatedly do so?

As we debated the finer nuances of risk communication internally,

Our Comment: Is that how FACHEP viewed their false public rumors about Shigella and fights with the relief agencies?

Marc Edwards contacted McElmurry in early December with a request. Based on VT’ s latest findings, he was prepared to declare Flint water as safe as municipal water in other cities and wanted the FACHEP team to sign off on a statement to that effect.

Our Comment: The emails unambiguously prove Dr. Edwards only asked McElmurry for a truthful statement that Flint water was “much improved,” in response to the baseless claims that Flint water was getting worse every day (probably with FACHEP’s blessing)

McElmurry told Edwards that a sweeping statement about Flint’s water quality would be premature and declined to endorse the proposed statement.  Although Edwards was clearly already positioning his narrative about the water to undercut FACHEP’s work…

Our Comment: Edwards presented scientific data at the press conference showing Flint water was improving, in support of that of the relief agencies, and had no “narrative”’ beyond that data. As Pauli reveals in his book, it was actually FACHEP who was positioning a narrative to undercut Edwards. And when asked for actual scientific data point blank in an email, characteristically, McElmurry could not provide it. To this day we cannot find data supporting FACHEP’s position.

It was plain that all of the business about bacteria, just like Smith’s warnings about DBPs, was starting to interfere with his <Edwards> attempts to bring the story of his intervention in Flint to a triumphant conclusion.

Our Comment: What triumphant conclusion?  Edwards stated that Flint water was improving as expected, and he reminded residents to keep using filters/bottled water. Is that the story of triumph that so threatened FACHEP? 

And if there was any doubt amongst readers that the above malicious FACHEP rumors might not have been circulated, the very day after McElmurry responded to Edwards’ email, FACHEP’s Dr. Sullivan posted a picture on FACEBOOK (December 9, 2016) with text written on a pipe full of holes that stated “He says Flint pipes are healed and Flint water is safe…but there are holes in his evidence.” We can again see in all its glory, what we were starting to believe was FACHEP’s guiding motto in action: “Our rumor, your problem.” 

DR. PAULI LIVE: ON “TRUTH” IN A PROCESS OF POLITICAL STRUGGLE

On March 14, 2017, in a presentation at Lawrence Technical University, Dr. Pauli hit upon some of the key FACHEP attack narratives described in this blog post. Pauli publicly implied Edwards was bought by the State of MI but FACHEP was not. That Edwards was “collaborating” with the State, while on the other hand FACHEP was “collaborating” with the State (that’s right). That Edwards did not care about bacteria while FACHEP did care.
That “<Edwards> message has changed in many ways since coming to town in 2015” because he “sold out.” We also appreciate how Dr. Pauli “is focused on…less the truth of the crisis with a capital T, and more of the struggle around the crisis.” And that “sometimes when you are engaged in a process of struggle, truth is your ally, and sometimes it isn’t.” We have certainly seen how FACHEP responded when the truth was not their ally–watch and enjoy.

MS. MAYS AND FACHEP RESPONSE TO THE VT PRESS CONFERENCE

Back-to-back Melissa Mays and FACHEP events were planned to counter the December 2^nd 2016 VT press conference, which had apparently created an existential threat by presenting data that Flint water was “improving.” The Melissa Mays (FACHEP friend) press conference was to be held December 13^th, 2016, followed a day later by a FACHEP public meeting on December 14^th, 2016 at the Flint library.

The press packet and emails associated with the first press conference asserted it would “change the narrative regarding the water testing and analysis in Flint” by exposing “manipulation of data”  and “test results (which have been largely ignored) showing lead levels exceeding 1,700  ppb.” Ironically, it was only when we later viewed this press conference, that it became clear how Ms. Mays herself falsified and manipulated the data, by improperly collecting her high lead samples “from the meter” and violating the EPA protocol.    

As for the FACHEP press conference that was scheduled for December 14^th, Dr. Pauli explains:

In the lead up to our first community meeting in mid-December 2016, at which we planned to roll out our preliminary findings directly to residents, Smith called me almost daily as he tried to feel out whether he could safely get behind FACHEP. …declaring his support for FACHEP was a bit of a gamble, premised largely on his perception of my trustworthiness. Nevertheless, it was a gamble he decided to take, and he began the delicate process of convincing his allies, particularly Melissa Mays and the plumbers, to attend our meeting with open minds. They did indeed attend, but when they arrived skepticism was etched so deeply into their faces that I could tell we would have our work cut out for us winning them over.

Now, given that Ms. Mays had already publicized FACHEP’s narrative about “lies” and “being pushed to the side” by the State of Michigan in her social media posting of December 2, 2016, it seems that at least part of Pauli’s story is fictionalized to boost his anarchist professor credentials.

Fascinatingly, McElmurry provided a completely different characterization of the scheduled public meeting to their State of MI sponsor (i.e., the “number one enemy”) agencies. McElmurry emailed them on December 12^th to let them know that the forthcoming meeting at the library would essentially be a non-event, completely contradicting Dr. Pauli’s written account that it was a planned “roll out of preliminary findings directly to residents.” McElmurry wrote Dr. Wells:

“we will not be providing and <sic> new FACHEP results or information beyond what we have shared with you and has already been released… we have not invited media and we are not issuing a press release or statement. I’m happy to provide slides shared at the meeting once they are complete. I wanted to give you a heads up that this is happening.”

Thus, the public health agencies were completely unprepared for what would hit them next. How far would Dr. Love go, to turn activist hatred for the State of MI, into support for FACHEP?

Supporting documentation:

Primary author: Dr. Marc A. Edwards