A Law Was Meant to Free Sick or Aging Inmates. Instead, Some Are Left to Die in Prison.

Jimmy Dee Stout was serving time on drug charges when he got grim news early last year. Doctors told Stout, now 62, the sharp pain and congestion in his chest were caused by stage 4 lung cancer, a terminal condition. “I’m holding on, but I would like to die at home,” he told the courts … Read more

Cleanup Workers Got Sick After Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. They Want BP to Pay.

The oil washed ashore every day, globs of tarlike ooze blighting sugar-white sand beaches. Rodney Boblitt’s job was to report it. A special agent for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, he was assigned to patrol 14 miles of Panhandle beaches on an all-terrain vehicle, alerting cleanup crews to new slicks from the BP Deepwater … Read more

What Germany’s Coal Miners Can Teach America About Medical Debt

PÜTTLINGEN, Germany — Almost every day, Dr. Eckart Rolshoven sees the long shadow of coal mining in his clinic near the big brownstone church that dominates this small town in Germany’s Saarland. The region’s last-operating coal shaft, just a few miles away, closed a decade ago, ending centuries of mining in the Saarland, a mostly … Read more

For Patients With Sickle Cell Disease, Fertility Care Is About Reproductive Justice

Teonna Woolford has always wanted six kids. Why six? “I don’t know where that number came from. I just felt like four wasn’t enough,” said Woolford, a Baltimore resident. “Six is a good number.” Woolford, 31, was born with sickle cell disease. The genetic disorder causes blood cells to become misshapen, which makes it harder … Read more