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Dave Lindorff and his guest on PRN.fm’s ‘This Can’t Be Happening!” program, Dr. Jess Guh, talk about Mumia Abu-Jamal’s court battle in federal court in Scranton to force the state’s prison system to provide him with treatment for his active, if left untreated, potentially fatal case of Hepatitis-C. Dr. Guh, a primary car physician from Seattle who has been investigating the shoddy standard of health care in the nation’s prisons, and who has reviewed some 100 pages of Mumia’s medical record, says that what Pennsylvania and many other states are doing to prisoners in their control is nothing short of malpractice and neglegence on a massive scale.

Dave Lindorff, PRN.fm host of ‘This Can’t Be Happening!’, talks with Dr. Jess Guh about Abu-Jamal’s fight for Hep-C treatment (Click here or on image to go to the podcast)

The leaves came off the last trees — a crabapple, a willow and a hardy Norway maple — during the first week of December this year, surely the latest I can remember seeing leaves on trees since we moved to the Philadelphia area 18 years ago. But it’s not just that.

A rhododendron bush beside the house has huge blooms ready to burst open, the white petal tips pushing out of their scaly looking egg-sized buds. And our garden is still boasting a surprisingly fast-growing crop of chard, sweet kale and perhaps most surprisingly, tall fava bean plants that, while they didn’t produce any beans this year, saute up to make a beautiful doumiao — one of my favorite Chinese vegetable dishes.

On a micro level, it is nice to be able to harvest fresh veggies pest-free from our garden a few days before the new year (and, judging by the 10-day forecast, well into 2016!), thanks to our not having had one below-freezing day yet this fall and winter, and only a few nights when the temperature dipped into the high 20s, not enough to kill hardier vegetables like kale and chard. But viewed through a climate-change lens this is pretty scary.

Nobody can tell me that climate change is a hoax.

Oh sure, we could chalk this thus-far winterless winter in the northeastern US to El Niño, but that just dodges the reality that this year’s El Niño is the mother of all El Niños. And why is that? Warming oceans.

It could be that we’ll get some cold weather later this winter — perhaps another “polar vortex” like we had last year, but even that, remember, was easily attributable to even more dramatic warming that has been occurring in the far north, up above the Arctic Circle, where markedly higher temperatures have weakened the force of the Jet Stream, and made its globe-circling course much more erratic, including big loops down into the temperate zone, including the central and eastern US, where it brought us arctic winds and a lot of snow.

In Upstate New York friends say the evidence of climate change is also evident. In the East Branch of the Delaware River, famous among trout anglers, the water has gotten so warm in summer that the trout are dying off. Runs of American eel, which used to also populate the river in summer months before heading off to the Sargasso Sea to breed, are now also in a steep decline. Meanwhile an invasive species, the ash borer, is wiping out the region’s many ash trees — once the favored wood for American baseball bats like the Louisville Slugger, as well as for furniture. Local sawmills are buying up all the trees they can before they’re all killed off. With no severe winters to kill off the bugs, this devastating blight will likely see the ash tree go the way of the American elm and chestnut.

Rhododendron buds opening after Xmas north of Philadelphia, and the 2015 Arctic sea ice minimum in 2015 vs. the historic average minimum extent of sea ice

 
The third in a three-part series on Mumia Abu-Jamal’s fight to force the Pennsylvania prison system to treat his active Hep-C infection, and that of thousands of other infected state inmates, and on the raging Hepatitis-C epidemic in the nation’s prisons. (Click here for Part I or here for Part II)
  
Seattle, WA – Physicians are held to professional expectations dictating that the failure to provide standard healthcare is malpractice. There is no difference between failing to provide a service and performing a liable medical mistake.

A recent study revealed that out of the top three reasons why OBGYN physicians are sued for malpractice, two of them are related to inaction: 1) delays in intervention when there are signs of fetal distress and 2) the improper management of pregnancy including failing to test for fetal abnormalities when indicated, failure to address complications of pregnancy, and the failure to address abnormal findings. As a family medicine physician, I have been warned countless of times that one of the most common lawsuits relates to not identifying cases of skin cancer. In each of the instances, an inaction that results in a patient not receiving standard care is considered malpractice.

Given that not providing standard of care is malpractice, Mumia has been a victim of malpractice at the hands of the prison health system in two major areas:
• Even though Hepatitis C treatment is not always required, the failure to provide it for Mr. Abu-Jamal would be medical negligence. By even the most conservative standards, he meets criteria for treatment.
• Failing to treat his elevated blood sugars until he was unconscious is clear malpractice and gross negligence.

Unfortunately, Mr. Abu-Jamal’s case is not an isolated incident. Across the country inmates are not only being denied necessary Hepatitis C treatment, but they are also being denied other basic healthcare needs.  

My special gun cannot sleep.
My gun is black steel and cold as a stone.
My gun talks to itself in the wee hours.
It has a soul.
It is lonely.
It dreams about hitting the bull’s eye,
Never missing.
Bam-bam-bam-bam, rapid fire.
The smell of gunpowder
Lingers over the dusty street
After a Western shootout.
One bullet through the heart of a terrorist.
Mother approves.
My special gun is Mama’s hero every time.
The third eye of the moon
Opens in my gun’s hypnagogic vision.
The moon is smiling down on the planet.
Smiling tenderly into a little pond.
A wave silently crossing the pond
Lifts the face of the moon.
Something sliding under the surface
Is pushing the water up.
Turbulence followed by stillness.
My gun sleeps.
Goodnight my special gun.

–Gary Lindorff

The second in a three-part series on Mumia Abu-Jamal’s fight to force the Pennsylvania prison system to treat his active Hep-C infection, and that of thousands of other infected state inmates, and on the raging Hepatitis-C epidemic in the nation’s prisons. (Click here for Part I)
 

Scranton — It’s always risky to try to second-guess how a judge will ultimately rule, simply based on that judge’s comments during a court hearing, or on which side’s attorney has objections over-ruled more frequently.

Having said that, Federal District Judge Robert Mariani, during a hearing Friday to consider a request by state prison inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal for a preliminary injunction ordering the state to provide appropriate treatment for his active case of a potentially fatal Hepatitis-C viral infection, showed impatience and even annoyance with the state’s efforts, both at the prison and including in court, to continue refusing treatment and to delay any legal hearing on the issue.

The proceeding began in a packed courtroom in the William J. Nealon Federal Building and US Courthouse here with consideration of a motion by Laura Neal, an attorney for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) to have Abu-Jamal’s appeal summarily rejected on the grounds that he had allegedly “not fully exhausted” administrative grievance remedies concerning his lack of medical treatment by the DOC and that he had specifically not asked in his initial complaint for treatment for Hep C.

Judge Mariani pointed out from the bench that the DOC, despite Abu-Jamal’s displaying grave signs of a mystery skin ailment that had turned the skin on most of his body into what prison doctors described as “elephant skin,” and despite his sudden development of type-2 diabetes, which within a few weeks of onset had raised his blood glucose to a life-threatening level, causing him to collapse into unconsciousness, and despite having known since a prison screening blood test in 2012 that he had contracted Hep C, had not, at that point, even conducted a test to look for signs of the active virus in his blood until May of 2015. That was well after he had already filed his initial complaint.

When attorney Neal continued to insist the Abu-Jamal had not exhausted his grievance option, and later that he had not named the specific doctors involved in his care at the prison, the judge said, “What he (Abu-Jamal) asserts is a lack of diagnosis and an absence of medical care. If you say that to exhaust (his grievance remedy option) he has to name every doctor involved, that’s a tortured argument.”

Photo showing part of the serious skin rash suffered by Mumia Abu-Jamal, traced to his untreated Hep-C infection. Prison lawyers sought unsuccessfully to have it barred as evidence at his hearing, claiming it was ‘inflammatory’
 

Philly City Hall Protest
 

The first in a three-part series on Mumia Abu-Jamal’s fight to force the Pennsylvania prison system to treat his active Hep-C infection, and that of thousands of other infected state inmates, and on the raging Hepatitis C epidemic in the nation’s prisons. (Click here for Part II)
 

The big courthouse news in Pennsylvania this week does not involve yet another sordid revelation in the sleazy racist-pornographic email scandal now soiling top justice system officials in the Keystone State that include a state supreme court justice and ranking prosecutors.

This big news is rare courtroom testimony from Mumia Abu-Jamal, the renowned jailhouse journalist considered by many around the world as an authentic political prisoner in America.

On December 18th Abu-Jamal is scheduled to testify during a federal court hearing on his lawsuit attacking medical mistreatment from Pennsylvania prison authorities, and demanding –- negligent treatment that almost ended his life earlier this year. The lawsuit also seeks a court order mandating that he and other Pennsylvania inmates diagnosed with Hep C, a potentially deadly diseased, get treated with medications that, while costly, have a proven cure rate that is quite impressive

Abu-Jamal has rarely testified in court during the thirty-plus-years he’s waged legal battles in criminal and civil courtrooms at state and federal levels. Abu-Jamal spent nearly thirty-years on death row improperly due to calculated error by the judge at his 1982 trial for killing a Philadelphia policeman. Pennsylvania appellate courts cavalierly upheld that trial judge’s error but that error was eventually overturned in federal court leading to Abu-Jamal’s current life-without-parole sentence. Pennsylvania is the state with America’s second largest number of inmates with life-without-parole sentences

This federal court hearing arises from a lawsuit filed over failures of Pennsylvania prison personnel to properly treat medical problems that produced painful rashes and open sores all over Abu-Jamal’s body. Medication given to Abu-Jamal during the mistreatment of those rashes produced dangerous side effects including diabetes, a serious condition that went untreated by the prison medical personnel that also refused to inform Abu-Jamal about the diabetes. Earlier this year that untreated diabetes caused Abu-Jamal to blackout. Prison officials reluctantly rushed him to a hospital emergency room in diabetic shock close to death.

When I was very young, my parents used to tell me why having “lots of toys” wasn’t a good idea. “The more you have, the more you want,” they would say. I didn’t have many toys — we were poor — so the idea of possessions feeding greed didn’t make much sense to me then.

But I’ve learned the truth of that statement from observation over the years and lately I’ve been observing Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg is a 31-year-old computer programmer who did two things that made him famous: he founded Facebook, the social networking super service, and, as a result, he amassed a fortune worth about $46 billion. His bank account is as large as the capitalization of many countries.

The Zuckerberg Family

How he got to these lofty heights of wealth and cultural impact is a matter of often fierce debate — he’s been sued by former “partners” several times. But what’s more important than how he got control of Facebook is what he’s constructed with it: a ubiquitous presence in the lives of a billion people with the potential to frame and manipulate their communications, their relationships and, to a frighteningly large extent, their lives.

So last month, when Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced in a letter to their new baby — a rather novel way to package a press release — that, over the course of their lives, they will give almost all their Facebook shares to a project called the Chan Zuckerberg Iniative, the world took note.

The Initiative, they explained, would “advance human potential and promote equality” in health, education, scientific research, and energy. In short, change the world: on its face, a worthy cause. But, like many of Zuckerberg’s plans and projects, this one has another side that is darker, more cynical and, even if only partially successful, a potential nightmare for the human race.

 
 
Mouse (who never had an evil thought)
Asked penguin (who never raped or pillaged),
Have you seen caterpillar
(that one who never held anyone at gunpoint)?
Oh, you mean butterfly, said penguin,
Now he is butterfly (but, just like caterpillar,
He never held anyone at gunpoint either).
Crow (who never stabbed anyone in the back),
Who happened to overhear this conversation,
Said he just saw butterfly
Flying over the garden.
Should I tell him you want him? asked crow.
 
Just then up crept lion (who never bought or sold sex).
What’s going on around here? he asked
He was looking at mouse, who seemed to be in charge.
And mouse (who never had an evil thought)
Was looking back at lion wide-eyed.
I thought you were poisoned! said mouse.
I was poisoned, said lion, but I rallied.
I’m still not feeling tiptop.
 
Those humans. . .
Said worm (who never cheated at cards).
Sticking his head out of a hole in the ground,
They’ll put you on a hook and throw you in the river.
Yeah, why do they do that shit, said crow.
Sometimes they just want to look around
And sometimes they just want to kill you.
Why, they’ll stab you in the back!
 
A lot of them think evil thoughts, said mouse.
Some rape and pillage, chimed in penguin.
They buy and sell sex too, said lion.
I don’t know how I know that, but it’s true.
Here comes butterfly, cawed crow.
Butterfly landed on lion’s mane sedately.
What are we talking about?
Humans, squeaked mouse dismally.
 
I had one hold me at gunpoint, said butterfly
(Who used to be caterpillar).
Everyone looked genuinely surprised.
But only for a second because
That’s when mouse
Invited everyone to a party.
Where did worm go?
Oh, I think he went to get his cards.
 
 
—Gary Lindorff

With this article, ThisCantBeHappening! welcomes Dr. Jess Guh to our collective. You can read about her background by clicking on the “Who, and What, Are We?” button above, just below our masthead.
 

Going to the doctor is like going to the car mechanic. It falls right between “trip to DMV” and “post office during the holidays” on the list of errands that we all hate doing. Just like the car mechanic, it can be expensive and even if they don’t fix the problem, you still have to pay. When they do find something wrong, you have to take their word for it and assume that whatever course of treatment they suggest is best. If you try to go against their recommendation they give a condescending stare and then ominously warn, “OK, it’s your life do whatever you want, but it really isn’t safe.”

But at least some people know something about cars that can give some advice. We all have a friend who spends the weekend with their buddies fixing cars. I don’t know anyone who sits around on a Sunday with friends working on each other’s hypertension.

Whether it’s your health or your transportation, it’s disconcerting to have such critical parts of your life in a black box of decision making. You don’t know how physicians are making their decisions. Surely they are thinking about what will make the best health impact, but what else are they considering? Cost? Pharmaceutical advertisements? Convenience? What about race?

In a time where white supremacy is no longer acceptable, a far more insidious form of racism is at play: unconscious bias. Implicit bias and microaggressions are difficult to describe and almost uniformly unintentional, but their impact is tremendous. Because medical decision-making is far more ambiguous than most people realize and involves the evaluation of subjective and incomplete data, it’s particularly prone to unconscious bias.

The CDC estimates that two thirds of adult Americans have either hypertension or pre-hypertension. Deciding the best way to treat this disease impacts over 70 million people. So when the Joint National Committee, a panel of experts on hypertension, released their updated guidelines at the end of 2014, it caused quite a controversy. While the guidelines included a plethora of recommendations, the debate has largely surrounded their recommendation that patients over the age of 60 have a more relaxed blood pressure goal of 150/90 instead of 140/90.

It’s been over a year since the new guidelines were released, but the debate continues. What’s so baffling to me is not that we keep discussing the 150/90 thing, I agree it is important, but that in all this time the most controversial part of the guidelines hasn’t been mentioned in public debate or the media: that physicians should treat black patients and non-black patients differently.

Give me an adequate army, with power to provide it with more pay and better food than falls to the lot of the average man, and I will undertake, within 30 years, to make the majority of the population believe that two and two are three, that water freezes when it gets hot and boils when it gets cold, or any other nonsense that might seem to serve the interest of the state.
                    - Bertrand Russell

An epidemic of unhappiness is spreading across the planet, while capital absolutism is asserting its right to unfettered control of our lives.
                    - Franco “Bifo” Berardi
 

First there was Paris. Then Colorado Springs. Then San Bernadino. A great discussion was raised in the land over which of the killers were terrorists and which were just lunatics. Police and FBI frantically went through apartments, hard-drives and cellphones to find out who had radicalized whom. Well paid corporate TV anchors salivated as police cordoned off crime scenes and politicos huddled in secret situation rooms to get their stories straight so they could release an official story to an eager and fearful public. They no doubt kept many important details to themselves.

Media covers focused on America's problem with murder/suicide

Beyond the radicalizing question, there isn’t much interest why these people — versus other people — did what they did. Motivation comes down to: Who made them do it? The words alienation and despair are rarely seen, except maybe in the marginalized columns of the left. The problems of alienation and despair disappeared from the national discussion about the time Jimmy Carter’s malaise was overwhelmed by Ronald Reagan’s shining city on a hill and the rigors of 21st century “neoliberal” financial capitalism took the driver’s seat in America.

The Right emphatically pointed at ISIS and the Muslim threat. Utilizing sophisticated social media skills, a monstrous, growing caliphate had declared war on America and was seducing people living among us to kill us. America needed to respond with unrestrained lethal force, so America could be great again. In cases like the Planned Parenthood killings and the Charleston killings, the Left pointed at rightwing media bullhorns like Bill O’Reilly for relentlessly demonizing Planned Parenthood and the Black Lives Matters movement. O’Reilly vociferously denied on-air that he had “radicalized” anyone; he was not responsible for armed lunatics. The National Rifle Association stood firm: Any controls on citizen access to military assault rifles was the work of the Devil.