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Articles by Eike Blohm, MD

Elderly Prisoners Catch a Break on Medicare Part B

by Eike Blohm, MD

A change in Medicare rules ends a years-long policy of forcing elderly prisoners to pay for benefits they are literally not free to use or else face life-long penalties.

Americans 65 years and older are covered by Medicare, the government-run health insurance. Medicare consists of several ...

Transgender Idaho Prisoner Who Won Gender Conforming Surgery Awarded Over $2.6 Million in Legal Fees

by Eike Blohm, MD

On September 30, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho awarded $2,631,593 in attorneys fees and expenses to a former state prisoner, who successfully sued for gender confirming surgery to address a severe case of gender dysphoria that included several attempts at self-castration. ...

Arizona Resumes Executions

by Eike Blohm, MD and Chuck Sharman

After Arizona resumed executions last year, following an eight-year hiatus, it quickly murdered three murderers on its death row.

On May 11, 2022, a lethal injection of pentobarbital was given to Clarence Dixon, 66, a mentally ill Native American, by then blind. Blaming ...

Prisoner Health Update: Hepatitis C

by Eike Blohm, MD

Hepatitis C (HepC) is inflammation of the liver due to the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV). The virus infects about 1 to 2% of the U.S. population, but it is likely the most prevalent infection in American prisons. As there are no national standardized testing protocols or ...

DOJ Releases Special Report on U.S. Prison COVID-19 Response

by Eike Blohm, MD

A special report issued by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in August 2022 tracked the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in state and federal prisons. It found they suffered high rates of infection and death despite lockdowns and suspended visitation. There was also a ...

$3 Million From Forsyth County, No Stay in Civil Case Against Wellpath Nurse Indicted for Involuntary Manslaughter of N.C. Jail Detainee

by Eike Blohm, MD

After a federal court in North Carolina declined to stay a civil case against Wellpath and a nurse it employed accused in the wrongful death of a detainee at the Forsyth County Jail, the county settled its part in the case for $3 million on May ...

Prisoner Health Update: MRSA Infections

by Eike Blohm, MD

MRSA — Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus — is a bacterium that has become immune to Penicillin-like and Cephalosporin-class antibiotics. The pathogen is found where people live together in close quarters such as hospitals, nursing homes, and overcrowded U.S. prisons.

How It Spreads: Transmission from one prisoner to ...

$2.57 Million Settlement for Hogtying Death in NC Police Custody

by Eike Blohm, MD

On October 20, 2022, a federalcourt in North Carolina approved a settlement obligating the City of Greensboro to pay $2.57 million for the wrongful death of a mentally ill man, after city cops detained and hogtied him in September 2018.

Most people were enjoying the late-summer ...

Experimenting on Prisoners: New California Lawsuits Reveal Old Abuses

by Eike Blohm, MD

The City of Philadelphia formally apologized on October 6, 2022, for medical experiments conducted on some 300 men — mostly Black, many of them pretrial detainees — incarcerated at the now-shuttered Holmesburg Prison over 50 years ago.

Interest revived in the ancient torture at the notorious ...