Flint water crisis led to spike in children with special needs and drop in school grades a decade later, according to research that likens fallout from disaster to Chernobyl

The Flint water crisis has resulted in all-time high numbers of children with special needs and poor performance in school. More than 12,000 children to were exposed to toxic levels of lead in 2014 when the city switched it's public water source to the Flint River, where the water is considerably more acidic. This led to corrosion in lead pipes, which imbued the city's tap water with lead, and then introduced it into the drinking supply. Lead exposure has been linked to behavioral and cognitive problems, mental illness, and an underdeveloped brain. Now, researchers from Michigan and New Jersey experts have reported the rate of young children diagnosed with special needs increased by eight percent after 2014 while performance in math class dropped.