Vol. 80/No. 36 September 26, 2016
Abu-Jamal leads fight for hepatitis care for prisoners
Abu-Jamal, a radio journalist and former Black Panther, has been in prison for 34 years. He was convicted in 1982 and given the death penalty on frame-up charges of killing a Philadelphia police officer. Under pressure of a growing international campaign, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned his death sentence in 2011, ordering him to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Abu-Jamal filed the lawsuit after officials told him he was not eligible for treatment because he was not sick enough.
Abu-Jamal sued the wrong officials, he needs to sue the prison system’s hepatitis C committee, Mariani ruled. Even though that committee did not exist when the suit was filed, his lawyers said, they will refile the case.
“This is not just about myself,” Abu-Jamal said in a taped statement Sept. 7, available at prisonradio.org. “There are over 6,000 men and women, according to the DOC’s numbers, who are infected with hepatitis C and are not being treated.”
Hepatitis C can be cured 90 to 95 percent of the time, with a 12-week daily regimen of a pill that costs $1,000 each. According to the Guardian newspaper, only five prisoners in Pennsylvania have been given the pills.
The Department of Corrections told the court “there simply is not enough money to treat every individual.” Under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, prisoners are entitled to adequate medical care.
Dr. Paul Noel, chief of clinical services for the corrections department, testified that their protocol is to “identify those with the most serious liver disease and to treat them first” and then move down the list to “lower priorities.” Using medical terminology, he said that a prisoner has to have brain or liver damage, or be on the verge of bleeding in the esophagus, before they will get the pills.
Abu-Jamal has scarring on his liver. But if he got the medicine now he would be “jumping line,” Noel argued. “Whoever is lower down will have to wait longer.”
“Mumia’s petition is to get everybody treatment, he’s bringing the line up,” Pam Africa, a leader of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, told the Militant by phone Sept. 9. “People would not have known about the horrors of the protocol and they’ve been trying and trying to keep it quiet.”
“We’ve got to demand this fair and better treatment for thousands of men and women who are held captive in the DOC,” Abu-Jamal said. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says one-third of those in U.S. jails have hepatitis C.
Prison authorities have treated Abu-Jamal vindictively, unsuccessfully trying to block his move to the general prison population from death row. They have often arbitrarily thrown him into solitary confinement. And they have refused to allow him to have doctors of his choice examine him.
To get more information or join the fight to get medical treatment for Abu-Jamal and other prisoners, visit: www.freemumia.com.
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