[T]he ACLU and Harvard Law School are suing the state Department of Corrections over the denial of hepatitis C treatment to hundreds of Vermont inmates.
Hepatitis C is a progressive liver disease that can lead to cancer and death if left untreated. The standard curative medication, a daily oral pill taken for eight to 12 weeks, is allegedly being withheld from more than 200 prisoners so the DOC can cut costs.
The suit charges that the denial of the medication violates both the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Jay Diaz, a staff attorney with ACLU Vermont, said it’s hard to know exactly how much the medication costs, saying it’s something the state treats as a “trade secret.” But if the inmates weren’t behind bars, Diaz said, they’d be getting the medication for free — whether it be through their insurance, or through Medicaid. He also noted that though the state says the medication is expensive, officials know costs have come down “substantially” over the past few years.
The ACLU has been advocating on the issue for several years, through its membership in the Vermont Coalition for Access to HCV Treatment. In 2018, the DOC began to provide the medication to some inmates on a more regular basis, but the ACLU alleges that only about one-fifth of the more than 300 people with chronic hepatitis C have been treated.
Diaz said only the people whose hepatitis C meets a certain standard of severity are receiving treatment, while the rest are regarded as having only mild or early liver disease, and are thus not eligible for medication.
DOC Commissioner Mike Touchette said he could not comment on the case, as litigation is still pending, but that the treatment of HCV within the Vermont correctional system is “the same as the prevailing standards of care within the Vermont community.”
The class action suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Burlington on behalf of two Vermont prisoners, Richard West and Joseph Bruyette, both of whom are being held at Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport.
According to Diaz, Vermont is not alone in this fight. He said prisoners in a number of other states have had the same problem. But he said the lawsuits in those states, including Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Missouri and others, “have by and large been successful.”
The ACLU of Vermont teamed up with Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. Diaz said the center has been a great partner because it has worked on hepatitis C litigation before.
The problem isn’t a lack of DOC funds, Diaz said, because the department has a more than $100 million budget. He also noted that last year, the Legislature allocated $2 million specifically for this purpose.
“I think they have plenty of money,” Diaz said. “It remains unclear whether they have actually spent that money to the benefit of prisoners.”
There has been a spike in hepatitis C in young people over the past several years, both in Vermont and across the country. Diaz said that’s just another manifestation of the opiate crisis, that the state needs to be taking more seriously.
“While these people are in prison, they have no other way to access health care,” Diaz said. “They’re at the mercy of the Department of Corrections.”
