Not only are California prisons crowded, many are located in the desert, where soil-born spores carry a potentially deadly disease–and the spores float right into the enclosed prison walls. “Of the more than 8,200 inmates at the two prisons, the medical receiver estimates 40% — or 3,280 — must be moved immediately.  It is not clear why certain populations are more prone to the infection than others. But from 2008 to 2010, at least 355 prisoners required hospitalization, and the receiver reported 34 deaths related to valley fever from 2006 to 2011, most of the victims African Americans.”

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prisons-valley-fever-20130430,0,5200404.story