After an article in the Minnesota Star Tribune exposed the fact that the state’s health commissioner kept secret the results of a study on asbestos-caused cancer among taconite miners, she continues to defend her decision not to release the results to the general public for more than a year.

Health Commissioner Dianne Mandernach claims that during the year in which they held the results of the study, her office was working to design two new studies to determine whether the taconite itself had caused the cancer of 35 additional miners.

“And what we were trying to do was to make sure we had a scientific basis and protocol put together, so that when in fact the study results come out, that there is peer review process so they are accepted within the community, and actually by the regulatory agencies, so that decisions can be made,” Mandernach told the media.

Susan Vento, whose husband – Congressman Bruce Vento – died of mesothelioma in 2000, says she can’t understand why the design of the studies would take so long. “If that’s the amount of time it takes, the Department of Health can’t be trusted to handle this issue. That makes no sense at all,” she stated.
Vento also claims that the Health Department is locking out medical researchers and union officials, as well as the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. She believes that all of those individuals could have helped design the studies.
“I think by doing it in secret, they really shut off a lot of opportunity for a plan that’s comprehensive and really proactive,” Vento said.

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