U.s. Prisoner Denied Cancer Treatment
Resistance Conspiracy Case
U.S Prisoner Denied Cancer Treatment
PHOTO: The Resistance Conspiracy Six (left to right). Top: Linda Evans, Tim Blunk, Susan Rosenberg, Alan Berkman. Bottom: Marilyn Buck, Laura Whitehorn
After medical neglect and a six-month delay in follow-up care, political prisoner Dr. Alan Berkman was diagnosed as having a recurrence of Hodgkin's Disease (lymphatic cancer) following a biopsy on May 3. Experts say that if Berkman is not treated appropriately soon, he will die.
Berkman, one of six Resistance Conspiracy defendants, has been imprisoned since May 1985, and is serving 12 years on conspiracy and robbery charges arising from his participation in a revolutionary movement.
Berkman's condition has been aggravated by the inadequate health care he has received in prison. Following a March 19 CT scan (a medical test used to discover signs of cancer) at District of Columbia Hospital, a prison doctor - disagreeing with a hospital doctor who said the scan did not indÃcate a problem - recommended a biopsy of tissue from Berkman's abdomen.
Not until May 3, at Howard University Hospital, was a biopsy actually performed. During that operation Berkman was leg-shackled and chained to the operating table. Despite the presence of a cancer specialist who was prepared to examine him after the biopsy Berkman was returned to the prison a half-hour after coming out of the anesthetic from the operation. The cancer has now spread to his abdomen.
Berkman is currently in the District of Columbia jail. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has a unit at Rochester, Minn. where Berkman could get chemotherapy from the nearby Mayo Clinic, a facility experienced in treatment of Hodgkin's Disease. However, the BOP has classified Berkman "high security" and says that, if he is returned to its control, he must go to a federal prison hos-pital in Springfield, Mo. His lawyers and colleagues say that there are no appropriate healthcare facilities there.
A graduate of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, Berkman became a leftist activist in the 1960s. For the past 20 years he has provided medical care to poor communities. He gave treatment to Native American activists at Wounded Knee and treated prisoners following the Attica Rebellion.
To demand Berkman's transfer to Rochester, send your letters to: Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Rm. 5111, 10th & Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20530 and Michael Quinlan, Director, Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Rm. 554, 10th & Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20530.
Brighten an ailing prisoner's day; write to Dr. Alan Berkman, #233315, 1901 D St. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003.
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JAIL (from page 6)
direct U.S. miliary involvement in Latin America but also the militarization of our domestic society. Given the realities of racism and poverty, it is the African-American and Latino communities that will be patrolled by the National Guard and have helicopters overhead. We have already seen indiscriminate sweeps of the streets in Los Angeles hailed as an important weapon in the war on drugs. In Chicago and Washington D.C., residents of public housing projects have to carry official identification to get into their homes. In South Africa, those are called pass laws.
There are no easy answers to problems the U.S. faces. But, having now spent five years in prison as one of the Supreme Court's "carefully limited exceptions," I know that the problems can't be "locked up." That path leads only to the police state Justice Marshall envisioned.
Laura Whitehorn #220-858, 1901 D St. SE, Washington, D.C., 20003