RED EYE ON THE NEWS . . . January 18, 2023

Racism in medicine has long history
New England Journal of Medicine, 9/8/22–On May 23, 1968, Howard Goldman, director of the New York Bureau of X-Ray Technology, acknowledged that x-ray technicians routinely exposed Black patients to doses of radiation that were higher than those [w]hite patients received…as x-ray technology developed in the early 20th century, false beliefs about biologic differences between Black and [w]hite people affected how doctors used this technology.

Ideas about racial differences in bone and skin thickness appeared in the 19th century and remained widespread throughout the 20th. Theodor Waitz’s 1863 Introduction to Anthropology asserted, for instance, that “The skeleton of the Negro is heavier, the bones thicker.” Such claims reflected both beliefs about behaviors attributed to Black people (e.g., violence) and the interests of White scientists and slave owners who justified slavery.

The belief that Black people have denser bones, more muscle, or thicker skin led radiologists and technicians to use higher radiation exposure during x-ray procedures. A physician in 1896 asserted that “black being perfectly opaque,” black skin would “offer some resistance to cathode rays.”...In the 1950s and 1960s, x-ray technologists were told to use higher radiation doses to penetrate Black bodies.

Palestinians look for leadership
Times of Israel, 12/15/22– 72 percent of Palestinians support the creation of additional armed groups in the West Bank akin to the Lion’s Den terror group that operates against Israel, according to a new poll…The Palestinian Authority (PA) Health Ministry has reported 167 Palestinian deaths as a result of Israeli gunfire in the West Bank this year. The IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] operation has mostly focused on the northern West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is seen to have lost control amid the sprouting of armed groups such as the Nablus-based Lion’s Den.

A clear majority of respondents told PCPSR [Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research] that they support the formation of armed groups that don’t take orders from the PA and that are not part of the PA security forces, but numbers were higher in Gaza, where 84 percent of respondents backed the concept than in the West Bank, where 65 percent supported the idea. Israel has sought to work with the PA security forces to quash Lion’s Den and the PA has worked to convince members of the armed group to turn themselves in, rather than be hunted down and killed by the IDF.

Nobel Peace Prize winners vetted by CIA
Monthly Review, 12/27/22–The Nobel Prize Committee has five judges, appointed by the Norwegian parliament, who are tasked with choosing Nobel Prize winners. But people are starting to wonder if there is a 6th Nobel Prize judge, not appointed by the Norwegian parliament, but by the CIA, who is tasked with making sure that winners of the coveted Nobel Peace Prize advance the agenda of U.S. policymakers. Although the idea may seem far-fetched, this year’s winners all have connections to a CIA offshoot, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED was founded in the 1980s to promote propaganda and regime-change operations in the service of U.S. imperial interests. Allen Weinstein, the director of the research study that led to creation of the NED remarked in 1991: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”