An apology for delay in releasing cancer findings

06/20/2007

By David Shaffer,
Star Tribune
Last update: June 20, 2007


Minnesota Health Commissioner Dianne Mandernach today apologized to Gov. Tim Pawlenty's office and admitted she made an "error in judgment" in delaying the release of information about a deadly cancer among Iron Range miners.
"With the benefit of hindsight, we should have provided this information earlier," Mandernach said in a news released posted on the health department's website. "It was clearly the right thing to do."

Pawlenty's press secretary Brian McClung said the governor would not fire Mandernach as requested by nine legislators in a letter earlier today. The nine include the entire Iron Range delegation, plus Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville.

"We do not believe this rises to the level of termination," McClung said of the commissioner's actions. He cited her long service in public health in and out of government as a reason for retaining her.

Legislators led by Rep. Thomas Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, said that legislative committees will investigate the handling of the release of the information.

Marty said Tuesday that the Senate Health Committee will hold a hearing next month, prompted partly by a Star Tribune report Sunday that state officials waited a year before releasing research findings that 35 additional miners had developed a deadly asbestos-related cancer.

Marty said today that he and Rep. Karen Clarke, DFL-Minneapolis, also have asked for documents from the health department related to the decision to delay the release of the cancer findings.

Also, the union representing most Iron Range miners have called for a legislative and a criminal investigation. "It just seems to me a public agency does not have the right either morally or legally to keep this kind of data from the taxpayers," said Bob Bratulich, District 11 director of the United Steelworkers.

A state researcher discovered the additional cancer cases in March 2006, but the findings were suppressed while officials made plans for future studies. They were not released until March of this year. Public health experts have criticized the delay, saying the state's 4,000 miners had a right to know the information.

Mandernach has said the department needed time to plan the complex studies of the Iron Range cancer cases and "have all of your ducks in a row."

The deadly cancer, known as mesothelioma, strikes the lung lining decades after the victim is exposed to asbestos fibers.

The union called on the Legislature and the attorney general's office to investigate the matter. Bratulich said he had not spoken to the attorney general's office and couldn't say what law allegedly was broken, but was aware that Marty might hold a legislative hearing.

He said the union has long believed that studies of iron ore and cancer never went far enough, but that it is "absolutely ridiculous" the Health Department withheld the new cancer findings for a year "under the guise of having to develop study protocols."

Marty said he is also concerned about a delay in January in releasing information about discoveries of a 3M chemical in Washington and Dakota county drinking water wells, which had been sampled in November and December.

"It is the same related thing," he said. "It is the assumption that we don't have to tell you because we know when to disclose what we want you to know."

Health Department spokesman Doug Schultz said there was no plan to delay the release of the well-water findings. The sampling turned up low levels of perfluorobutanoic acid, or PFBA, in municipal wells in Woodbury, Cottage Grove, Newport, St. Paul Park, South St. Paul and Hastings.

Schultz said state officials began briefing local officials shortly after getting the results. He said a news release was drafted for release within days after the briefings were done, but that schedule didn't hold.

A radio station was tipped off to the findings by a local official, so the news release was issued late that same day, Jan. 19, he said.

Marty said he hasn't set the date and time of the hearing.

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