Mandernach resigns as health commissioner

08/21/2007

The governor, who had supported her even after she suppressed a report on cancer deaths among miners, accepted her decision.


By Joy Powell,
Star Tribune
Last update: August 21, 2007


After months of blistering criticism of her performance, Minnesota Health Commissioner Dianne Mandernach will leave her post effective Oct. 2.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who had stood by Mandernach announced her departure late Tuesday.

"I sincerely appreciate Dianne's willingness to set aside her private career for a time to serve Minnesota," he said.

"We wish her and her family well as she moves on from state government."

Mandernach issued this statement through the governor's office: "This decision was very difficult for me because I firmly believe in the department's mission to protect, maintain and improve the health of all Minnesotans."

The statement went on to say: "I will miss the opportunity I have had to contribute to that mission and to lead one of the best health departments in the nation."

She had been lambasted for months over her suppression of information about cancer deaths related to taconite mining on Minnesota's Iron Range.

Mandernach also had been criticized for the 2004 posting on the Health Department's website suggesting that abortion might have a role in breast cancer. Critics denounced those claims as junk science, and the wording was later removed from the website.

While that incident may have damaged Mandernach's credibility, it was the revelations in June by the Star Tribune that she had delayed releasing government research related to cancer in miners that led to calls for her resignation.

In June, DFL lawmakers demanded Mandernach's resignation after her department admitted that it had delayed for a year the release of details on the cancer deaths of 35 miners. That disclosure touched off a probe into the possible link between taconite and the cancer, called mesothelioma.

State Sen. David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm, was among those who called for the commissioner's resignation:

"It's about time," he said Tuesday evening after hearing the news of her departure. "But why now? Is this timing indicative of something, trying to take the focus off of the bridge, or other things that are collapsing in the state of Minnesota?"

He and other legislators, including Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, had said that they suspected that the yearlong suppression of research about the cancer deaths was a political move in an election season -- an allegation that Mandernach vehemently denied.

In an apology that she issued on the department's website, Mandernach had said her motive for delaying release of the information was to develop plans for further studies before announcing the findings this past March. That would have been one year after the findings were first discovered.

Raising questions

On Tuesday, Tomassoni renewed his questioning about who knew what, and when.

"I also wonder how a single internal memo [about Mandernach's reported resignation] is discovered by the press, but five internal memos [that dealt with the mesothelioma deaths] were not discovered by anybody," he said. "Did the governor really know about the deaths? Is he part of the cover-up? Is Mandernach's resignation an attempt to take attention off other things?"

In June, even as Pawlenty, who appointed Mandernach in 2003, publicly chastised her for the delay, he had said she would not be fired.

"We were told from the outset that the commissioner wouldn't resign, that the governor was giving her his full backing," Tomassoni said Tuesday night.

"You see that there were reports that the bridge was falling apart, and you wonder how many other things are going on in this administration that need attention and are being ignored.

"Who knows what else is collapsing around us?"

Rep. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, who serves as on the Health Care and Human Finances Division in the Legislature, said the news caught him by surprise.

"I'm sad to hear it. I think she was a good commissioner -- very devoted to her work," he said.

In his comments Tuesday, the governor lauded Mandernach's time with the state.

"Her work in areas such as strengthening emergency preparedness, promoting healthy behaviors, reducing health disparities, expanding health information technology, and improving how we report on the quality of health care have helped people and our state," he said.

Mandernach, a former nun and schoolteacher, was chief executive of the Mercy Hospital & Health Care Center in Moose Lake, Minn., from 1994 to 2003.