Our Deadly Bread
The coronavirus and deadly diet in Indiana Prisons
Experimenting on prisoners
As unthinkable as it may be, and as much as many may like to dismiss the notion as an implausible conspiracy theory, U.S. officials have a long and well-documented history of using prisoners as medical test subjects and guinea pigs.
U.S. prisoners have been frequently and deliberately infected with all manner of deadly and infectious diseases, often denied treatment or administered experimental medicines to study the progression of diseases or the effects of untested drugs.1 Practices that duplicate what the German Nazis did to prisoners in their concentration camps.2
The deliberate spread of COVID-19
I’ve previously described conditions here at Indiana’s Pendleton Correctional Facility, under which officials are obviously causing COVID-19 infections to happen and spread unchecked. I also described the cold sack meals that prisoners have been forced to eat since April 15th, that are grossly lacking in basic daily nutrition.3
A deadly lack of nutrition
As I explained previously, the diet we are receiving consists of peanut butter and jelly and processed meat sandwiches, only one piece of fruit and one vegetable serving, and a small serving of cereal per day. The meals are predominantly sandwiches, with TWELVE SLICES of bread (six sandwiches) served per day.
A diet providing basic daily nutrition, according to the FDA, requires three-to-five vegetable servings and two-to-four fruit servings per day. No more than six slices of pre-sliced white bread should be consumed daily. Greater daily quantities of this simple carbohydrate cause spikes in blood sugar and over time may lead to type 2 diabetes.4 Frequent consumption of sugary peanut butter and jelly presents the same dangers.
What’s problematic is people with chronic blood sugar spikes and type 2 diabetes are especially vulnerable to COVID-19. This is because, “high blood sugar weakens the immune system and makes it less able to fight off infections.”5 Lack of fruits and vegetables has the same effect.6 Inadequate fruits and vegetables can also cause cardiovascular and digestive problems, cancer, metabolic disorders, visual impairment, depression, and other health problems.
Then there’s the problem with processed meats, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized to be a high carcinogen.7
So, why, one must ask, are Indiana officials deliberately limiting prisoners to an unauthorized modified diet that will spike blood sugar and otherwise undermine their immune systems, making them especially vulnerable to COVID-19? Why indeed are they compelling them to accept a diet that presents inherent health dangers independent of the COVID-19 risks?
Same shit different toilet
Seventy years ago, Amerika led in prosecuting select German Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg. Some were imprisoned others were executed.
Among the deeds that constituted such crimes, were the Nazis deliberately allowing contagious diseases to go untreated and spread unchecked in their concentration camps, which as stated already, is exactly what is being done here in Indiana, to a racially-targeted prisoner population.
At Nuremberg, U.S. officials announced that Amerika would accept accountability for the same violations in the future that the Nazis were being prosecuted for. In fact, U.S. Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson stated:
“If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”8
A pronouncement that was purely rhetorical, where Amerika has since committed the most horrendous human rights violations many times over, and, as in the present case, crimes against humanity no less heinous than what the Nazis did. But unlike the Nazis, the U.S. has insulated itself from accountability by claiming it cannot be prosecuted under international laws before the very World Court it led in creating in 1946 and has since held that the International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction over it.
So, we must take our fight to the people, who also stand to suffer from the spread of this virus that officials are deliberately causing to spread unchecked inside these prisons. You must join us in compelling this inhumane abuse to stop.
Write to Kevin “Rashid” Johnson:
Kevin Johnson #264847
G-20-2C Pendleton Correctional Facility
4490 W. Reformatory Rd.
Pendleton, IN 46064-9001
1 Mike Stobbe, “Ugly Past of U.S. Human Experiments Uncovered,” Associated Press, NBC News, Feb 27, 2011, http://www.nbcnews.com/id/41811750/health-health_care/t/ugly-past-us-human-experiments-uncovered/
2 Sergio Sabbatani, “The Infectious Diseases Experiments Conducted on Human Guinea Pigs by Nazis in Concentration Camps,” INFEZ MED, June 2013 http://pinned.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23774983
3 Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Failed Response to Coronavirus in Indiana Prisons (Pendleton Correctional Facility),” April 26, 2020
4 Megan Ware, “Is Bread Healthful or Should I Avoid it?,” Medical News Today, November 6, 2019 http://medicalnewstoday.com/articles/295235
5 “Covid-19 and Diabetes,” Web MD http://webmd.com/articles/diabetes-and-coronavirus
6 Ratan-NM, “How Dangerous is Lack of Fruits and Vegetables?” M Pharmacy
http://www.news-medical.net/How-Dangerous-is-a-Lack-of-Fruit-and-Vegetables-aspx
7 Stacy Simon, “World Health Organization Says Processed Meat Causes Cancer,” American Cancer Society, October 26, 2015 http://www.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-organization-says-processed-meat-causes-cancer.html
8 Quoted in Richard A. Falk, “The Circle of Responsibility,” Nation, January 26, 1970, p. 77
—mailchi.mp, June 3, 2020
https://mailchi.mp/449f6fc3b837/our-daily-bread?e=e874400868