Jim Taricani's cardiologist says that prison could imperil the health of the reporter, who has a transplanted heart and a pacemaker.

09:36 AM EST on Thursday, December 9, 2004

BY TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Chief U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres will have to weigh whether sending reporter Jim Taricani to prison will imperil his health.

Taricani, 55, had a heart transplant in 1996, and three years ago had a pacemaker installed.

At one point, after finding Taricani in civil contempt for refusing to identify the source of the Plunder Dome videotape, Torres seemed to lean against a prison sentence.

"It appears incarceration could endanger Mr. Taricani's health," Torres said.

But last month, after Torres found Taricani guilty of criminal contempt, the judge indicated that he may send Taricani to prison today after all. "You ought to be prepared for any eventuality at the time of sentencing," Torres told the reporter.

Torres said "the Bureau of Prisons has some first-rate medical facilities that are fully equipped to handle a wide variety of serious medical conditions, and I'm told that they have successfully managed and attended to the special needs of heart-transplant patients."

The judge invited Taricani to present any additional evidence he would like so that if he is sent to prison, the Bureau of Prisons would designate an institution so Taricani could be taken there at the time of sentencing and would not be placed in temporary holding facilities along the way that might not be as well-equipped to handle his needs.

Torres said that he was aware that Taricani's heart requires special care and might make him more vulnerable to illnesses.

But the judge also pointed out that "Mr. Taricani, to his credit, has continued to live a very active life; he has vigorously continued to pursue his profession and he's traveled abroad recently."

This spring, Taricani traveled to Paris with his wife, Laurie White, for vacation. He works full-time for Channel 10, eats in restaurants and works out at a health club.

Traci Billingsley, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, said yesterday that she does not know whether the federal prison system has ever cared for a heart-transplant recipient or whether it has one in its custody.

But the Bureau of Prisons has informed Torres that it can care for Taricani at one of its six medical centers for men. The closest is in Fort Devens, in Ayer, Mass., where Frank E. Corrente, the former City Hall official who was seen taking a bribe in the videotape aired by Channel 10, is serving his sentence.

Barbara J. Cadogan, health systems administrator for the Bureau of Prisons, says that if Taricani is jailed, he would be given an immediate physical and a plan of care.

"Based on Mr. Taricani's medical history of cardiac and kidney disease, he will be placed in a chronic-care clinic, so that his medical conditions are closely monitored and treated," Cadogan wrote.

If prison doctors believe that he needs more specialized care, each medical facility contracts with major medical centers to provide specialized treatment, Cadogan said.

For example, she said the federal medical center at Fort Devens has extensive contracts with the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, including kidney and cardiac transplant specialists and pacemaker monitoring and evaluations.

Cadogan says inmates at the medical centers have the opportunity for daily exercise and nutritionally balanced meals and that the Bureau of Prisons maintains a sanitary environment for medical and correctional reasons.

According to the Bureau of Prisons' Web site, "the bureau's policy, practice and position is that inmates should receive medical care consistent with community standards."

Taricani is facing up to six months in prison for defying Torres' order to identify his source. But based on his health, his lawyers are asking the judge to give him no more than 30 days' home confinement.

Two heart specialists who have treated Taricani have written to Torres to say that imprisonment would endanger the reporter's life.

Taricani's doctors argue that to ensure Taricani's continued well-being, he needs to maintain a strict regimen that can be followed only if he is allowed to remain free or confined to home.

According to letters submitted by his doctors, in addition to heart problems, Taricani suffers from reduced kidney function and severe hypertension, side effects of the medicine he takes to suppress his immune system.

He takes six prescription drugs every day, some of them to suppress his immune system so that his body will not reject the transplanted organ.

Taricani must take his medication at the sames times each day -- 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Because infection is a leading cause of death in heart transplant patients, the reporter has had to stay away from his office if coworkers are ill. He must sleep in a separate bedroom if his wife has a cold, the flu or another virus.

He also has a condition that leads to decreased blood flow to the vertebral artery, and severe tricuspid disease, which increases the risk of getting an infection that causes damage to the heart valves.

He can't share eating utensils, cups, plates or soap with others, or use a group shower room, his doctors say. He must avoid poorly ventilated areas and prolonged exposure to below-freezing temperatures. He must use alcohol wipes to regularly clean his work space.

According to this doctors, Taricani must perform at least 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise and 30 minutes of weight lifting per day. He has to adhere to a low-fat, low-salt diet. He cannot eat raw food, whole milk, white flour starches, egg yolks or grapefruit, and isn't supposed to eat red meat more than once a month. Exposure to hepatitis or HIV could be fatal, they say.

Marc J. Semigran, medical director of the heart failure and transplantation unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, where Taricani received his heart transplant, says placing Taricani in a federal medical facility "would be preferable to a placement in a standard prison or jail," but "would nevertheless raise health concerns for Mr. Taricani that would not exist for other persons."

Semigran says the medical director at Fort Devens told him that there are 16 transplant recipients there. Fifteen have had kidney transplants and one has had a kidney and pancreas transplant.

Semigran said he was also told by Devens' medical director that it "lacks the means to isolate transplant recipients from other inmates/patients who have been exposed to viral infections such as influenza, which can lead to serious respiratory infections in an immunosuppressed patient such as Mr. Taricani." Richard S. Shulman, Taricani's cardiologist in Rhode Island, says in his letter that Taricani's condition "might be labeled as stable" but that it is also "fragile. Keeping a patient with advanced heart disease on a stable track is a delicate balancing act," he says.

"Any major stress is liable to upset the apple cart and could begin the process of organ rejection," says Shulman. If Taricani were incarcerated, "we, as physicians, might not have an opportunity to take action in the timely fashion that his condition requires" because Taricani is "a very stoic individual" who doesn't complain about his health, he says.

As for Torres' observation that Taricani was well enough to travel abroad this year, Semigran says the trip was planned in advance with Taricani's transplant doctors and "was to a location that is both clean and has heart-transplant centers and did not impose any significant stressors on Mr. Taricani."