SAN FRANCISCO — A lawyer representing inmates at two California state prisons told a federal judge Monday that an airborne fungus occurring in the San Joaquin Valley presents the deadly threat of valley fever and that thousands should be transferred immediately.
Warren George, of the Prison Law Office, said 18 inmates died in 2012 and January 2013 from complications relating to the fungus that causes valley fever and more inmates would die if the court waited any longer.
"It will go on. Delay means more death," George said.
But Walter Schneider, an attorney representing the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, told U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health should be allowed to complete a study of the issue before the court orders the transfer of 3,250 of 8,100 inmates at the prisons. Schneider said the study would be finished by December.
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