Law firm accused of using X-ray scanners on Flint residents for 6 months with no state oversight

LANSING, Mich. — Thousands of Flint residents were put at potential risk because a New York law firm, for six months, used handheld X-ray devices to scan their bones for lead without first registering the devices and putting recommended safety measures in place, documents obtained by the Free Press show.

Starting in about August 2020, the Napoli Shkolnik firm used the portable scanners — which are tools in the mining and scrap metal industries but are not designed for use on humans — as a way of bolstering residents’ claims for larger shares of a proposed $641.25-million settlement of civil lawsuits arising from the 2014 lead poisoning of Flint’s drinking water supply.

The law firm’s failure until February 2021 to register the devices with the state of Michigan, as required by law, and the state’s low-key response once it learned the scanners had been used for months without required approvals, add insult to the injury that was the Flint drinking water crisis.

“Unfortunately, thousands of bone scans using these devices ... went forward under improper and illegal circumstances,” said Dr. Lawrence Reynolds, a Flint pediatrician and former president and CEO of Mott’s Children’s Health Center, who first raised concerns about the scanners in a February court filing.

“It turns out that the violations and safety concerns were valid and even went beyond what many of us suspected and feared.”

Records obtained under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act show:

The state of Michigan did not know the law firm was using the portable scanners on Flint residents — or any other human beings — when it granted registrations for two of the devices on Feb. 25.

After the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration found out, in early March, it conducted a March 23 inspection and ordered certain changes to protect workers, such as requiring them to wear radiation monitors attached to their fingers or wrists, and requiring a supervisor to monitor workers and their radiation exposure.

In his May 4 inspection report, MIOSHA physicist supervisor John Ferris also said he was “considering” additional measures to protect Flint residents, including supervision of the scanning by a medical doctor, advance notice to residents of the radiation doses they were expected to receive, and modifications to the scanners, including an automatic shutoff switch to prevent excess radiation exposure. By then, at least one of the devices had been in use for close to seven months.