![PMUMIA07Z-A]()
Federal judge orders state to provide Mumia Abu-Jamal with hepatitis C treatment
Federal judge orders state to provide Mumia Abu-Jamal with hepatitis C treatmentPennsylvania has abt 13 million population or abt 4% of the USA population… so the 600 million to treat these inmates in PA could represent a 15 BILLION liability if you expand that to all the prison population in the USA. Any of these prisoners that also have HIV +and HEP B… the cost of treatment could be upwards of $750,000 PER PERSON. Is this a “taxpayer liability” because of the USA’s policy of treating the “brain disease” of addiction as a CRIME… which forces addicts to share needles and thus share whatever diseases any of the previous users of the needle had ? So much for our healthcare system’s goal of DISEASE PREVENTION
A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that Mumia Abu-Jamal should be provided new medications by the state to treat his hepatitis C infection.
If Abu-Jamal is medically cleared, the state must provide him with recently developed direct-acting antiviral medication, also known as DDA.
Susan McNaughton, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman, said, “We are reviewing the decision and cannot comment further at this time.” She did not elaborate.
The DOC has argued in court filings that Abu-Jamal has not met the criteria for treatment.
The state has about 7,000 inmates with hepatitis C, and treating them – at a cost of $84,000 to $90,000 per person – would cost $600 million.
Robert J. Boyle, a New York lawyer representing Abu-Jamal, said in a statement that he expected the state to appeal the ruling.
“The struggle is far from over: the DOC will no doubt appeal this ruling. But a victory!” Boyle said.
Bret Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center for drunk driving attorneys in Pittsburgh said the ruling was the first time “a federal court has ordered prison officials to provide an incarcerated patient with the new [hepatitis C] medications that came on the market in 2013.”
In 2015, Abu-Jamal, who spent 29 years on death row, was hospitalized after he fell into diabetic shock and was found to have hepatitis C. Lawyers filed suit that year to improve his medical treatment.
Mariani, a Scranton judge who sits in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, previously stated that the Department of Corrections’ interim protocol for treating hepatitis C “presents deliberate indifference to the known risks which follow from untreated chronic hepatitis C.”
But he ruled against Abu-Jamal because members of the department’s Hepatitis C Treatment Committee, which makes treatment decisions, had not been named as defendants. An amended complaint was filed in September.
Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and sometime radio reporter, was found guilty of the Dec. 9, 1981, slaying of Faulkner, 25.
He was sentenced to death in 1982, but that sentence was overturned by a federal appeals court and reduced to life without parole.
Filed under: General Problems
This man is serving life without parole for murder, why should hev get treatment for hep c when there are plenty of people who aren’t in prison for life who cannot receive treatment because of my costs involved? Give palliative care to anyone in prison for life without a but why should our tax dollars pay not only to feed,clothe, house,educate, etc but to extend that life? If he’s in pain treat that pain in the same way non criminals are treated (which isn’t very well with present laws) but other than that this man already gets more than most law abiding citizens of our tax dollars! Basic medical care is really more than he deserves but it is only humane. Murderers don’t respect life so why grow broke extending his life!?!
Yes, it is a liability and financial burden passed down to tax paying citizens for treating addiction as a crime. For far too long both right and left wing professional lyers (Politicians) have created absolutely moronic laws regarding illegal / street drugs. In the late 1960’s with both the Vietnam War and the beginning of the peece movement (Summer of Love) that showed up on virtually every college and university campus in the country. The appearance of more and many different types of drugs started appearing everywhere. Including drugs created by government scientist/chemists designed to enhance soldiers preformence, or the ones designed for interrogation like LSD.
Soldiers sitting in the jungles of South Vietnam, fighting a war that they didn’t understand. Then having access to substances that helped them forget or escape from reality for a little while simply to haze over all the Nasty SHIT they were ordered to do. These very available drugs included Marijuana, Opium and Heroin.
Even though the use of Marijuana has never been proven to lead to heroin addiction, the government took it upon itself to declare that Marijuana does and actually told the public it is the original “Gateway Drug”. Then, President Richard Nixon (TRICKY DICKY) used his power to declare war against all drugs not deemed legal for consumption and Marijuana ended up being at the very top of the policing and prosecuting agencies indictment list. This left heroin on our, mostly urban streets to eventually migrate everywhere.
Then, some brilliant ASSHOLE decided that privatizing a lot of this country’s prisons was a great idea, essentially making the penal system a profit based industy. This then made drug offences the number 1 form of prosecution in the country with many offenders getting more time sentenced then even murders, rapists and child molesters because non violent prisoners are easier to control.
So now we have American prisons filled with innocent people suffering from the disease of addiction and costing the American tax payers billions of dollars a year because a bunch of moronic politicians and judicial system idiots turned our criminal justice system into a business.