Why Abdul El-Sayed's long-shot bid for governor merits attention
When Abdul El-Sayed delivered the commencement speech at his graduation from the University of Michigan in 2007, former President Bill Clinton, who took the stage after him, joked that the then-22-year-old had a future in politics. El-Sayed, a Muslim born to immigrant parents, had studied political science and biology, but opted initially for the more pragmatic career path: He became a doctor.
Eight years later, after receiving a Rhodes Scholarship and studying at Oxford University in England, El-Sayed landed in the public sector, heading up Detroit's health department at the age of 30. At the time of his 2015 appointment by Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, El-Sayed was the youngest health commissioner in any major U.S. city.
But his time helming the department would be short-lived. El-Sayed oversaw public health programming in Detroit for an 18-month period in which the city made headlines for shutting off water to tens of thousands of residents. He says his requests for an end to the water shutoffs went ignored, but his department never conducted a study to look into the possibly detrimental health risks of the policy, and it remains in effect today. El-Sayed did however manage to complete a study on another, less visible public health issue facing the city: a massive home demolition program that was spewing lead paint particles into the air and, as El-Sayed now tells it, "poisoning kids." It took Mayor Duggan more than a year to act on the data collected by the health department; his administration didn’t adjust the demo schedule to mitigate the risk of lead exposure in kids until this spring.
The inaction on the part of his former boss is what appears to have motivated El-Sayed to seek to be the person in charge. At 33, he is running to be governor of the state of Michigan with the goal, he says, of "building a Michigan that is more just, more equitable, and more sustainable."
Read more: https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/abdul-el-sayed-wants-to-transform-michigan-by-investing-in-people-and-hes-budgeted-for-every-cent/Content?oid=12129817
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