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Activists Protest “Obscene” Big Pharma Conference

At JP Morgan “Health Care” Conference in SF:

Outrage Against Big Pharma!

Activists Protest “Obscene” Conference

Corporate Big-Wigs Say Protest Is “Abomination”

“This conference that we are picketing … 

is an obscene reflection of the reality of this country today, 

that the most important thing is money and profit, 

and not human needs!”

– Carole Seligman,

Speaking at the demonstration

It was in their fancy tailored suits and with suspicious eyes that Big Pharma CEO’s and investors got interrupted by protestors and speeches such as the above, as they came and went from the (too-big-to-fail) JP Morgan-sponsored conference on “health care” (read: profit care) at the elite Westin St. Francis hotel on Union Square in San Francisco on Monday, the 11th of January 2016.

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Protest for Mumia, January 11th at 12 noon

Protest Outrageous Prices by Big Pharma!

Support Free Health Care for HEP-C Prisoners!

Jail Drug Profiteers, Free Mumia!

ALL OUT!

Monday January 11th at 12 Noon

JP Morgan Healthcare Conference

Westin St Francis Hotel 

335 Powell St, Union Square, San Francisco

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal is supporting the O.A.S.I.S. Clinic of Oakland, CA, which treats patients with Hepatitis-C (HCV), in calling for a demonstration to protest the outrageous price-gouging of Big Pharma corporations, which hike-up the cost for essential, life-saving medications such as the cure for the deadly Hepatitis-C virus, in order to reap huge profits. Many American working people, including prisoners, are the victims.

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In America’s Prisons: Mumia and the Nightmarish Hepatitis C Epidemic

by Jack Heyman

[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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UAW 2865 Letter to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf

UAW 2865, representing 13,000 student workers in the University of California system, wrote a protest letter to Governor Tom Wolf demanding medical care for Mumia and the 10,000 prisoners in the Pennsylvania prison system with Hepatitis C. The letter is below.

Gov. Tom Wolf,

Mumia Abu-Jamal (#AM 8335) has been a longtime honorary member of the National Writers Union, United Auto Workers Local 1981; as a fellow UAW local we were very concerned when we learned that he has been severely ill with symptoms of active hepatitis C for at least the last six months. What is equally distressing is that according to a private doctor who was allowed to see Mumia in the prisoner visiting room, treatment given to Mumia by the prison infirmary has contributed to his many painful, debilitating, life-threatening symptoms, such as nearly going into a diabetic coma on March 30 when he had to be hospitalized. But the most distressing of all is that on September 18, Magistrate Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Karoline Mehalchick issued a proposed order deny Mumia’s motion for a preliminary injunction and his 1st amended complaint seeking immediate treatment for active hepatitis C. This was in response to the preliminary injunction (Abu- Jamal v. Kerestes) filed August 26 seeking a court order for immediate lifesaving treatment. All these factors point to a willful case of medical neglect, which could, if not addressed, lead to Mumia’s death. Treatment for hepatitis C has a 95 percent cure rate. By withholding that medication, the Pennsylvania Department of Correction would be responsible for imposing a death sentence on Mumia.

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