Dr. Mona Hanna, a renowned pediatrician, scientist and activist, spoke at the Tufts Center for Medical Education on Wednesday as part of the Tisch College Solomont Speaker Series. She discussed her research and her ongoing efforts to advance public health and combat infant poverty. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Margie Skeer, a professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine.
While working at a clinic as a pediatrician, Hanna said she would often ask herself, “Why am I taking care of a kid intubated with asthma and we’re not addressing air quality?” She emphasized the importance of research in addressing global crises such as child poverty.
“We need to take a step back and see what’s happening to the population of children over time,” she said.
In 2018, Hanna published the book, “What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City,” which details how Hanna discovered a drastic increase in the percentage of children with elevated lead levels in their blood, caused by lead leaching from pipes and inadequate treatment of the drinking water in Flint, Mich.
“There is no safe level of lead at all; there’s no treatment, yet it was in our drinking water system for about a year and a half,” Hanna said.
The crisis was exacerbated by the government’s failure to act, Hanna said.
“Flint’s people were especially not listened to because we had lost democracy —the city was taken over by emergency managers; it was a power grab. It was racially driven,” she said.
Hanna faced backlash from the government for exposing the crisis. Skeer pointed out that Hanna “encountered a lot of roadblocks — maybe related to gender [or] maybe related to race.”
Throughout Hanna’s advocacy, she was often dismissed.
“One of the reasons I wrote the book in the first person was so that you could be in my shoes,” she explained. Addressing the audience, Hanna added, “I want you to keep asking yourselves: Why? Why am I doing this? Why am I here?”
Hanna’s book begins by describing the Flint water crisis as “a story about what happens when the very people responsible for keeping us safe care more about money and power than they care about us and our children,” according to Skeer.
“The more I came to learn about especially environmental protections and public health protections, the more I came to learn that our protections are grossly inadequate,” Hanna said.
One example of inadequacy Hanna pointed to is the “keyhole paradigm,” whereby one assumes that poisons, chemicals and toxins are safe until proven dangerous.
“We should not assume the food that we eat or the air that we breathe or the water that we drink is totally safe,” she said.
Hanna believes that the answer to this problem is strengthening regulations. One of the examples she provided was the recent Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, which “included billions of dollars to replace lead pipes across the country.”
“As a practicing pediatrician, I have wished for the ability to prescribe an antidote to poverty because so much of what we see in our patients [is] because of things like housing instability and transportation issues and food insecurity,” she said.
In response to the Flint water crisis, Hanna launched Rx Kids, a first-in-the-nation, citywide, maternal and infant cash prescription program for Flint residents. Rx Kids has prescribed over “$4 million in cash to over 1,000 families,” according to Hanna.
The conversation later shifted to the importance of coalition building. Skeer noted that Hanna refers to herself as a person who is “more progressive-leaning;” meanwhile, one of her closest colleagues, Mark Edwards, “described himself as a conservative Republican.”
Expanding on this, Hanna said one of the most important lessons she has learned is “the importance of working with all kinds of folks from all kinds of backgrounds and disciplines and sectors who care about the same thing that I care about.”
As the discussion concluded, Hanna encouraged attendees to pursue their passions and advocate for change.
“Find your passion, find your people and … be prepared … for potential work in advocacy.”
