REDEYE 2/22/17

U.S. terrorist raid kills Yemeni
NYT, 1-31 — …In an American commando raid  in central Yemen….after initially denying…civilian casualties, Pentagon officials backtracked…after reports…trickled in and grisly photographs of bloody children…killed in the attack appeared on social media….
Yemen’s foreign minister…condemning the Special Operations [said]…”The extrajudicial killings and killing civilians are acts that support terrorism.
…Another…official said that at least eight women and seven children, ages 3 to 13, had been killed in the raid.
S. Africa’s ‘concentration camp’ for mentally ill
NYT, 2/3 — Corpses of psychiatric patients were found with head injuries and unexplained bruises. Relatives were not informed of the deaths of their loved ones. The transfers of mentally ill patients were seen as business opportunities….
…94 psychiatric patients died…last year after being moved…to facilities that were likened in some cases to concentration camps….
…Facilities were overcrowded and “full of hungry patients,…” some were wearing pants held together with shoelaces….
…others died from “things like dehydration, diarrhea, epilepsy, heart attacks, all other things except mental illness.”
Demopublicans refuse to pay for GIs exposed to cancer-causing nuclear tests
NYT, 1/31 — When Tom Snider arrived…to clean up the fallout from dozens of nuclear tests…Army officers immediately ordered him to put on a respirator and bright yellow suit designed to guard against plutonium poisoning.
A military film crew snapped photos and shot movies of Mr. Snider,…a 20-year-old radiation technician, in the new safety gear. Then he was ordered to give all the gear back…. He spent the rest of his four-month stint…wearing only cutoff shorts and a floppy sunhat.
“I never saw one of those suits again,” Mr. Snider, now 58, said….”It was just propaganda.”
Today Mr. Snider has tumors on his ribs, spine and skull…resulted from his work on the crew….
Roughly 4,000 troops helped clean up the atoll….Most did not even wear shirts, let alone respirators. Hundreds…are now plagued by…brittle bones, cancer and birth defects in their children. Many are already dead. Others are too sick to work.
The military says there is no connection between these illnesses and the cleanup….[and] refuses to pay for the veterans’ medical care….a  longstanding pattern in which the government has shrugged off responsibility for its nuclear mistakes….
…Veterans have been denied care because shoddy or intentionally false radiation monitoring was later used as proof that there was no radiation exposure….
For two years, the…veterans have been trying, without success, to win medical care from Congress….As new cases of cancer emerge nearly every month, many…wonder how much longer they can wait….
…Documents….show that the government used troops instead of professional nuclear workers to save money. Then it saved even more money by skimping on safety precautions….
…Of 431 of the veterans….20 percent reported cancer. An additional 34 percent…reported…problems…related to radiation, like failing bones, infertility and thyroid problems….
Paul Laird….then a 20-year-old bulldozer driver…began scraping topsoil that…contained plutonium. He was given no safety equipment.
“The dust was like baby powder. We were covered in it,” said Mr. Laird, now 60…. “But we couldn’t even get a paper dusk mask. I begged for one daily. My lieutenant said…use a T-shirt.”
….When he turned 52, he found a lump that turned out to be kidney cancer. A scan…showed he also had bladder cancer….
He applied repeatedly for free veterans’ health care for radiation but was denied….
“When the job was done, they threw my bulldozer in the ocean because it was so hot,” Mr. Laird said. “If it got that much radiation, how the hell did it miss me?”
….A 1950 Supreme Court ruling bars troops and their families from suing for injuries arising from military service….
“A lot of guys can’t survive anymore, financially,” said Jeff Dean, 60….
Mr. Dean developed cancer at 43….bones in his spine deteriorated. Unpaid medical bills left him $100,000 in debt.
“No one seems to want to admit anything….I don’t know how much longer we can wait, we have guys dying all the time.”
Drug profiteers conspire to jack up insulin prices
NYT, 1/31 — A lawsuit…accused three makers of insulin of conspiracy to drive up the prices of their life-saving drugs, harming patients who were being asked to pay for a growing share of their drug bills.
The price of insulin has skyrocketed,…with Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lily raising the list prices of their products in near lock step [that]…have little to do with increased production costs.
The lawsuit….cites several…patients with diabetes who, unable to afford their insulin treatments, which can cost up to $900 a month, have resorted to injecting themselves to control themselves with expired insulin or starving themselves to control their blood sugar….
A recent study…found that the price of insulin nearly tripled from 2002 to 2013.