--- description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. title: Marc Edwards and Mona Hanna-Attisha by Rachel Maddow: TIME 100 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb7755fb4dc237a14/69888fd8a988caa7a96b77e7/time-100-2016-mona-hanna-attisha-marc-edwards.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 20, 2016 # Marc Edwards and Mona Hanna-Attisha by Rachel Maddow  In this Dec. 2, 2015, photo, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha poses for a picture with Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards after Flint Mayor Karen Weaver presented him with a certificate of appreciation after his presentation on Flint's water issues in comparison to Washington D.C.'s crisis in the early 2000's at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Mich. The conundrum, expert Edwards said Tuesday, April 12, 2016, is that residents afraid of using the water aren't running enough of it to rid the system of toxic lead. (Jake May /The Flint Journal-MLive.com via AP) LOCAL TELEVISION OUT; LOCAL INTERNET OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT In this Dec. 2, 2015, photo, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha poses for a picture with Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards after Flint Mayor Karen Weaver presented him with a certificate of appreciation after his presentation on Flint's water issues in comparison to Washington D.C.'s crisis in the early 2000's at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Mich. The conundrum, expert Edwards said Tuesday, April 12, 2016, is that residents afraid of using the water aren't running enough of it to rid the system of toxic lead. (Jake May /The Flint Journal-MLive.com via AP) LOCAL TELEVISION OUT; LOCAL INTERNET OUT; MANDATORY CREDITJake May—The Flint Journal/MLive.com/AP The Flint lead-poisoning disaster is simpler than it seems. Flint’s water didn’t turn toxic because of long-term neglect or because of some complicated mix of local, state and federal decisions. Flint isn’t just a symptom of some larger infrastructure problem in America (although we’ve got one). What happened to Flint is one simple story: a city got poisoned because the state government screwed up. The state took over the city’s affairs, and then made an ignorant decision about water treatment that ruined the city’s pipes and poisoned the town. Today residents still can’t drink straight from the tap. Still, no one delivers clean water to Flint’s residents. And the state is apparently in no rush to dig up and replace the pipes it corrupted. Residents knew something was wrong right away, but to get anyone to listen, it took civil-engineering professor Marc Edwards blowing the whistle on lead in the water and then Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a local pediatrician, testing Flint’s kids, proving they’d been poisoned. Up against official ignorance and indifference, Edwards and Hanna-Attisha were right, they were brave, and they were insistent. Flint is still a crime scene, but these two caring, tough researchers are the detectives who cracked the case. _Maddow hosts_ The Rachel Maddow Show _on MSNBC_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4301337/marc-edwards-and-mona-hanna-attisha-2016-time-100/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4301337/marc-edwards-and-mona-hanna-attisha-2016-time-100/"},"headline":"Marc Edwards and Mona Hanna-Attisha","datePublished":"2016-04-20T22:25:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:14:04.013Z","description":"Whistle-blowers for Flint","url":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4301337/marc-edwards-and-mona-hanna-attisha-2016-time-100/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb7755fb4dc237a14/69888fd8a988caa7a96b77e7/time-100-2016-mona-hanna-attisha-marc-edwards.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb7755fb4dc237a14/69888fd8a988caa7a96b77e7/time-100-2016-mona-hanna-attisha-marc-edwards.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/2016-time-100/4301337/marc-edwards-and-mona-hanna-attisha-2016-time-100/","name":"Marc Edwards and Mona Hanna-Attisha"}}]}] ```