[Originally published in Counterpunch here.]

A health crisis of epidemic proportions is raging in this country. Hepatitis C (HCV) has infected 3 million people, including over 700,000 in prison according to the Center for Disease Control. And 170 million people are infected worldwide. The rates of liver cancer because of HCV are growing faster than any other type of cancer.

Medical professionals call it “The Silent Epidemic” because symptoms in those infected by this blood borne disease may not appear for 20 plus years. America’s most prominent political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, near death in 1981, after being shot by police contracted hepatitis C from a tainted blood transfusion in the hospital. He was not diagnosed with the disease until 2012. If not treated with new life-saving drugs, patients will die from cirrhosis or liver cancer. Mumia is a victim of intentional medical mistreatment by prison authorities, consistent with the state’s attempt to execute him from the beginning.

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