"This only underscores the importance of the role local public health plays in protecting communities — and the challenges we now face without federal expertise to call on," Caroline Reinwald, a spokesperson for the City of Milwaukee Health Department, said in a statement to CBS News on Thursday. Children exposed to lead can face serious harm to their brain and nervous system, including slowing their development and causing problems with their hearing and speech.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention denied a request from Milwaukee's public health department for helping to manage lead hazards. According to CNN, the CDC is blaming the loss of its lead experts because of mass firings from last week across federal health agencies. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said the program could be reinstated.

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Before their firings, the CDC had been working for two months to address hazardous levels of lead in school buildings.

“The people who were answering our questions are just gone,” City Health Commissioner Michael Totoraitis said in an interview after the firings Tuesday at