OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR TIM PAWLENTY

09/26/2007

September 26, 2007


Governor Tim Pawlenty
Office of the Governor
130 State Capitol
Saint Paul, MN 55155

Dear Governor Pawlenty,

On Tuesday, July 24th our organization faxed you a letter requesting that you require your Health Commissioner and the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) to follow State law regarding newborn screening and baby DNA.

On Tuesday, July 31st, your staff assured us that your response was being drafted. When none arrived, we contacted your office on August 3rd. We were informed that your responses typically take two weeks.

It is now Wednesday, September 26th—nine weeks and one day since our July 24th letter.

We have yet to receive your response.

In the meantime, MDH has quietly withdrawn the revised newborn screening rule to avoid the addition of parent information and consent requirements as ordered by Administrative Law Judge Barbara Neilsen, and Chief Administrative Law Judge Raymond Krause in his denial of MDH’s appeal to continue the illegal and surreptitious present practice. These requirements would have given parents the right to protect their children from genetic research, government storage and ownership of their DNA, and secondary uses of their blood and its private genetic information.

Again, we are requesting that you, as Governor of the State of Minnesota, take immediate action to require the Minnesota Department of Health to destroy all the newborn blood specimens which it has stored and disseminated without statutory authority for more than 10 years.

The citizens of Minnesota have a right to expect their Governor and his administration to honor the law by not continuing to overstep the law.

The people are waiting.

Sincerely,

Twila Brase
President