[Vause:] Welcome back, everybody. A quick check on the markets in the Asia-Pacific region.
[Pres. Barack Obama:] In last month's bipartisan budget agreement we secured funding to help cities like yours to build water infrastructure; and we're going to have that funding available to you by the end of next week and that includes more than $80 million for the state of Michigan. Our children should not have to be worried about the water that they are drinking in American cities. that's not something we should accept.
[Vause:] The contaminated water crisis in Flint is the subject of the latest "Time" magazine cover story. The article entitled "The Poisoning of an American City: Toxic Water, Sick Kids and the Incompetent Leaders Who Betrayed Flint." Hundreds of people in Flint say the contaminated water has made them sick. Everything from hair loss to rashes and other unexplained illnesses. CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.
[Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cnn Correspondent:] Look at me. Look right at me. When her son Gavin started to become ill, it was subtle. So subtle Lee Anne Waters wouldn't have been blamed for missing it. Okay, look right at me. Keep your head straight. How about right here? How many fin
[Unidentified Child:] One.
[Gupta:] Okay, good job. Look up. Look down. Do you have any do your fingers feel numb at all? One day she looked at Gavin and his twin brother Garrett side by side, the difference was staggering.
[Lee Ann Waters, Mother, Flint Michigan:] The size he is right now is pretty much the size he was last February, February 5th of 2015.
[Gupta:] So almost a year ago.
[Waters:] Almost a year ago, yes.
[Gupta:] How much does he way with versus his twin?
[Waters:] He's 35.8 pounds and his twin is 58 pounds.
[Gupta:] For months they had been drinking the same water, but Gavin was showing the effects of poisoned by lead and such is the nature of lead poisoning. It can affect people differently even twins. elevated lead levels in the water in 2014. So this doctor started to look at levels in her young patients and what she found was shocking.
[Dr. Mona Hanna Attisha, Pediatrician, Flint Michigan:] The percentage of children with lead poisoning doubled in the city of Flint, and in some neighborhoods it actually tripled.
[Gupta:] She sounded the alarm to state officials as loudly as she could, but no one listened. instead
[Attisha:] We were attacked, so I was called an unfortunate researcher; that I was causing near hysteria and that the state numbers with were not consistent with our findings.
[Gupta:] Maybe denial was so easy because of this: Flint, a city surrounded by some of the largest fresh water lakes in the world was now delivering some of the world's most contaminated water to its citizens. In October of 2014, General Motors, you say, stopped using the water because it was corroding their parts.
[Attisha:] Right.
[Gupta:] That seems like an obvious clue.
[Attisha:] Yes, so red flags, loud alarms should have been going off in people's brains. If it is corroding engine parts, what is it doing to our plumbing that is predominantly lead based.
[Gupta:] Water that could corrode engine parts; just imagine what it is doing to the body and brain of Gavin Walters.
[Attisha:] These kids did nothing wrong. They did nothing wrong, except being poor.
[Gov. Rick Snyder, R-mi:] In May, Professor Mark Edwards, from Virginia Tech, and Dr. Mona Attisha sounded an alarm about lead in Flint's water.
[Gupta:] The Governor says you can have anything you want, anything, Mona.
[Attisha:] I want a rewind button to April of 2014. That's what I want because you can't undo this. You cannot undo this.
[Gupta:] If there has ever been a U.S. city in need of a rewind button, it is Flint, Michigan. More than a third of the people here are living in poverty; life expectancy is 10 to 20 years shorter than the rest of the state. There's not a full-scale grocery store anywhere in sight.
[Attisha:] And then we got lead? Like, if you were to think of something to put in a population to keep them down for this generation and generations to come it would be lead. It's just a loss of words.
[Gupta:] But they, Dr. Mona, Lee Ann, the 100,000 citizens of Flint, have to believe that clean water will return one day soon. Do you know why people have been putting you on TV lately?
[Gavin:] Yeah.
[Gupta:] Why?
[Gavin:] Because they wanted to put us on TV; so they could see us.
[Gupta:] Because you are handsome.
[Gavin:] Yup. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Flint, Michigan.
[Vause:] Well, coming up on Newsroom L.A., share the emotional moment when a little boy in China who thought he'd never have a real family meets his new parents for the very first time.