Health team created to help children in Flint water crisis

Lead poisoning in children can do irreversible damage to a child's brain. Ahead, the specifics on how one doctor in Flint is bringing together a team to protect the kids.

A team is now in place, ready to protect children from the effects of the Flint water crisis. The goal is to make sure an entire generation of kids doesn't suffer for the rest of their lives.

"This is our opportunity to do something, build something that's never been built before," said Dr. Mona Hanna-Attish at a news conference Thursday. "We are bringing in a team of experts in environmental health, epidemiology, psychology child development, every discipline to make sure this population wide exposure  doesn't limit life course trajectory."

The crisis slowly started in 2014 when the city of Flint switched its water supply to the Flint River.

It wasn't long after the switch that children started showing signs of high lead levels from tainted water. Lead is particularly dangerous to a child's growing body and brain exposure to lead can lead to mental and physical problems.

"My job is to look out for these kids," Dr. Hanna-Attish said.

Here's the new plan to tackle the crisis.

A team of experts will first, continue to assess how many kids have high blood levels, and then continue to monitor those children for an extended period of time. The third component is that they will do whatever it takes to make sure the lead doesn't do any long-term damage.

"Our goal is to see nothing. No consequences of this lead poisoning. Interventions so we don't see consequences of this lead poisoning," Dr. Hanna-Attish said.

There are many layers to this story. Click here to read more about the Flint water crisis.