"If any Tennessee inmate spits in the eye of a visitor, the prison system can test the inmate for hepatitis C or other diseases with or without consent.
The visitor must be told if the inmate has hepatitis C, or other infectious diseases.
But if the Tennessee prison system discovers a convicted rapist has hepatitis C, no one will alert the victim who was raped and possibly contracted the deadly disease.
Notifying victims is one of several steps prisons and state health officials could take to help address a hepatitis C problem that experts inside and outside Tennessee prisons acknowledge has reached epidemic levels.
But in a Tennessee prison system where drugs and violence are common, hepatitis C testing is poor and outdated treatment practices amount to what some consider willful ignorance, thousands of infected inmates are set to return to their communities carrying a deadly disease.
At the same time, an unknown number of victims continue to live unaware they may have contracted hepatitis C from their assailants."
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