Can Pawlenty’s Choice Restore Integrity to Health Department?

by Leo Cashman

As Governor Tim Pawlenty considered his candidates for a new commissioner of health, four DFL legislators publicly called on him to choose a leader who can restore trust in the department. At a Sept. 25 press conference, the legislators spoke bluntly about the need for a change in the culture at the Minnesota Department of Health in the wake of the scandal that led to the resignation of Commissioner Diane Mandernach.

“There is no trust on the Iron Range in the Department of Health right now,” said Rep. Tom Rukavina, of Virginia, Minn. “The department has gotten a black eye.”
For 15 months, the health department suppressed data showing a spike—from 17 cases to 58 cases—of mesothelioma, a rare but deadly form of cancer affecting the lungs. The shocking data came to light only after a department employee leaked the data to the media.

Another legislator, Rep. Shelley Madore, called upon the health department to quit promoting the flu vaccine to the elderly, pregnant women and other vulnerable people without telling the public that there are typically 25 micrograms of mercury in the typical flu shot. Madore, a mother of an autistic son, is sensitive to the findings of independent researchers that mercury in the mandated childhood vaccines has led to the ten-fold increase in autism and other developmental disorders seen in children both in Minnesota and around the country.

But the state health department has steadfastly denied that there is scientific evidence of such a link of autism to vaccine injury. Health department officials have also actively opposed a Madore-authored bill to establish a mercury-free preference for vaccines. Health care providers would have to use a mercury-free version of a vaccine when one it available and, when the only available vaccine has mercury, the bill calls for a warning to the consumer that the vaccine contains mercury.

The department has always opposed such warnings. Activist critics say that it is the department itself that, by its irresponsible conduct, is undermining public confidence in vaccine programs in Minnesota.

Other state issues of concern are elevated levels of perfluorinated chemicals in fish, the insecticide atrazine, and the department’s failure to do cancer registry as called for under a new law. The ground water in at least 35 communities, extending from the Twin Cities to Winona, is threatened by perfluorocarbons, requiring 150,000 people to drink specially treated water. Pesticides like atrazine and acetochilore cause deformities in frogs (only the industry disagrees) and hormonal changes in humans, but it took an MPCA whistleblower to reveal, in June 2007, that that agency had suppressed testimony on the dangerous levels of these insecticides in our state’s waters. The administration has also opposed stricter drinking water standards.

The new cancer surveillance law called for registering not only the name, age and gender of the cancer victims in our state, but also the residence and the occupation of the person. By simply recording this additional data, links between cancer and dangerous exposures in communities and in workplaces can be uncovered. But the department has balked at the requirement that it gather the additional data, says Rep. Karen Clark.

Rep. Clark represents the Phillips neighborhood of South Minneapolis, which is still cleaning up arsenic-contaminated soils. The health department has failed to set safe standards for human exposure to arsenic, either acute or long-term exposure. Such standards are badly needed by our community, Clark says, but the department seems to have balked at spending the money needed to really address the problem.