Death in Pleasant Valley

One 32-year-old African-American inmate, whose case [John Galgiani] reviewed, was sick "for at least two months," before his valley fever was recognized. He had dropped 15 pounds, was throwing up, had a headache and had been coughing blood. Even after diagnosis the inmate received "inadequate treatment" and developed meningitis, Galgiani testified in U.S. District Court. By then, "it was too late to save him." With prompt diagnosis and treatment, he added, "this young man might well have survived." His testimony was part of a class action that seven current and former inmates who contracted valley fever at Avenal or Pleasant Valley filed in early July against California Gov. Jerry Brown and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The incarceration of highrisk groups "was the equivalent of conducting a human medical experiment on the inmates, without their consent," plaintiffs said in the complaint. "While the great percentage of inmates might be expected to survive the disease, for an unacceptable percentage ... assignment to these facilities was a potential death sentence." "My own prejudice about Pleasant Valley, a misnamed place if there ever was [one], is the rate of disease is so high the site ought to be abandoned," Dr. Royce Johnson, chief of infectious disease at the Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, Calif., told ABC News. "You cannot tell by looking at someone's skin color what their risk is."