Showing posts with label fertility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fertility. Show all posts

Israel Boycotters are in a World of their Own



Here is my third and final medical analysis of the pointlessness and futility of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) crazies who target Israeli goods and services.  (For those who wish to be reminded of parts one and two, they can be read here and here.)  Again, please remember that all my examples are taken from news items that were published only in the last 4.5 months.  If I included all the medical work that Israel was doing, this article would run to hundreds of thousands of words.

I proved previously that BDS-ers have no heart, brains or spine – otherwise why would they boycott the country that is developing treatments for those areas of the body.  Now I suggest that the whole BDS idea is not only wrong - it is nonsense.  There is no sense whatsoever in boycotting a country that is working on restoring the senses of millions of people. 
-         Have they not heard that Tel Aviv University Professor Karen Avraham has discovered the reason for genetic hearing loss?
-         Have they lost sight of the benefit of Israel Technion’s research into substituting damaged retinas with a new area of the eye that has been turned into photoreceptors? 
-         Did they not read that US President Obama’s step-grandmother underwent emergency eye treatment at an Israeli-run hospital in Equatorial Guinea?

Would-be boycotters:
-         Do not have the guts to admit that Israeli research into colon disease is the best in the world.  Israel’s BiolineRX’s BL-7040 oral treatment for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) could bring relief to 1.4 million individuals in the US alone. 
-         Obviously cannot stomach the fact that scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have discovered at the cellular level how the gut’s immune system maintains a healthy balance.
-         Will be really “down in the mouth” when they realise their doctors cannot use the video and endoscope system from Israel’s Peer Medical.

I wish the BDS crowd would grow up:
-         But how can they if they boycott the human growth hormone developed by Israel’s Prolor Biotech? 

It is the end of the line for childless BDS-ers who boycott Israel’s innovative fertility treatments.
-         Cytoplasmic Morphologically Selected Sperm Injection (IMSI) developed in 2004 by Benjamin Bartoov of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University is at the core of the recently opened IVF centers in New Delhi. 
-         A research team from Israel’s Technion has produced human eggs using cells from the amniotic sac that surrounds a baby in the womb.  Experts believe that donation of the amniotic sac will be more acceptable than egg donation from fertile women – but not to BDS-ers.

Life is just too complicated for BDS-ers:
-         And they should end it all, now that they know three Israelis invented the science of Biogerontology (the study of longevity and the aging process) and that Israel recently hosted the eighth European Congress of Biogerontology.

The despicable BDS-ers cannot have any wish to save life. 
-         They would have added to the deaths of those murdered in the Boston Marathon bombings through refusing Israel’s help train Boston medical staff for a mass-casualty event.
-         They have no pity for the Boston children who would have been permanently scarred but for the post-trauma help from the Israel Trauma Coalition.
-         They would rather say “Roger and Out” to reducing emergency response times with the innovative call centre system from Israel’s NowForce, now operating in Missouri or to any training with Magen David Adom – Israel’s emergency first response service.
-         They would happily switch off Israel’s EarlySense “under the mattress” patient vital signs monitoring system currently being distributed to hospitals across the United States.
-         They would tell you to hand back your Oxitone wrist-worn blood-oxygen monitor that warns of any sudden deterioration in an “at risk” patient’s condition.
-         No sweat to them that more Africans have to die from tropical diseases rather than allow Ben Gurion University students to carry out an extensive educational medical and sanitation program in Ethiopia.

The warped world that the BDS-ers inhabit has no desire:
-         To cure measles; the US National Institutes of Health wants Ben-Gurion University to discover why the measles virus persists
-         To recognise Downs Syndrome; Israel and Singapore established World Down Syndrome Day in 2006 and over 400 participants attended this year’s event at Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem in April.
-         To cure autism; Osnat Zomer-Penn received the L’Oréal-UNESCO “Women in Science” prize for determining its genetic basis.
-         To treat osteo-arthritis; Moebius’s injectable solution was demonstrated at US road shows in February.

Finally, ALEH - Israel’s largest network of facilities for children with severe cognitive and physical disabilities - has pioneered a virtual reality (VR) facility to allow their residents to go on occasional field trips in simulated environments.  BDS-ers, however, live permanently in a Virtual world.  I advise them all to undergo cognative therapy until they can recognise the real world in which Israeli medical innovations are indispensable.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing Good News stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com

Israel is on the Map



A new Facebook application shows the location of Israeli Clean-tech projects and installations everywhere in the world. So this week I thought that I would share with you some more of Israel’s news stories where Israel appears on the global stage in a positive way.

The world will definitely benefit from two pieces of news from Israel’s Technion Institute.  Firstly, the eNose early diagnostic breath test for lung cancer developed by Technion Professor Hossam Haick is to go commercial.  The Technion has announced a joint venture with Alpha Szenszor Inc. to produce an economically viable, non-invasive, digital screening tool.  The other item is good news for infertile couples.  A Technion research team has produced human eggs using cells from the amniotic sac that surrounds a baby in the womb.  Experts believe that donation of the amniotic sac will be more acceptable than egg donation from fertile women.  No wonder that the goals of Israel’s Technion Rappaport Faculty of Medicine are “To reduce suffering and save lives – for the sake of all humanity.”


The map of the Middle East would appear far less hostile if Israel’s Arab neighbors would appreciate Israel’s efforts to reach out to them.  Nature certainly knows no borders and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies accepts equal numbers of students from Israeli Jews, Arabs from Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan; and international applicants.  And as the World Health Organization’s 2012 report confirms, Israel approved 98.7 percent of Palestinian applications from Gaza to receive medical care in Israeli hospitals. In total, Israel treated 210,469 Palestinian Arabs in 2012.

Two relatively positive articles about Israel were published last week in London’s Arab daily newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. They were written by Dr. Amal al-Hazzani, an assistant professor at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  They attracted a flood of hate mail, of course.  And it was predictable that two Iranian athletes decided to default rather than take the stage with Israelis at the World Judo Championships.  It didn’t upset the Israeli team, who celebrated with two gold medals and a bronze.


In contrast, Japan has just inaugurated a statue honoring the assistance that Israel provided following the 2011 tsunami in one of the hardest hit towns, Yanmei-Sanriku.  Meanwhile, seventy public health professionals from over 20 countries in Africa and across the globe have come to participate in the 2nd Pears International Master's in Public Health (IMPH) Alumni Reunion at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

One of Israel’s best international friends, Canada, sent a group of 11 business schools to Israel to learn about innovation and how to start up new companies.  And in a moving article, Ryan Bellerose – a native of the Métis colony in Northern Alberta, Canada – wrote about Israel’s epic story and his hope that the Metis keeps walking the same road as the Jewish people.

Israel is constantly seeking to improve relations with other nations.  But its latest bridge-building exercise is more literal.  The link from the Ariel Sharon Environment Park at Hiriya to the main thoroughfare leading to Tel Aviv will be constructed from some of the 800,000 aging maritime shipping containers that the world dumps each year.  The bridge even has solar-powered lighting.  Next, a by-product of Tawkon’s mobile phone emissions warning system is that it can create a map of network coverage.  So even if there is insufficient evidence of the dangers of radiation, it can enable better reception and also increase your battery life.

International police forces will now be able to produce a map of crime hot spots, thanks to Professor David Weisburd of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Criminology. His 16-year study has proved that 50% of city crime occurs in 5% of the streets.  In related news, Israel Technion’s Kira Radinsky and Microsoft’s Eric Horvitz have developed a program that can produce a world map of predicted disease and violence outbreaks with 70 to 90 percent accuracy.

You need to consult an atlas to see the extent that Israeli companies are working across the globe. For example, Israeli communications company Gilat has just won a contract with the Mexican government to supply over 7,000 SkyEdge VSATs to schools and government offices in order to provide thousands of rural classrooms and with Internet connectivity.  And if you were watching the American Super Bowl you cannot fail to have seen the huge TV screens featuring Israeli drinks maker SodaStream.  Finally, Israeli wineries were again showing their world class in the second annual Wine Seven Two kosher wine exhibition in Jerusalem.  Israel was the center of wine production in Biblical times and today it is becoming so once more.


To finish, the team behind SpaceIL is confident that in 2015 the Israeli flag will be flying on the surface of the Moon.  And Israel’s largest communications company, Bezeq has backed up that promise by signing up as the project’s first corporate sponsor.

Israel’s achievements span the world – and beyond.

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing Good News stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com


Israel Competes in a Fast Moving World


31/1/13

I had to laugh when the UN General Secretary blamed Israel for the stagnation of the Arab nations.  The Jewish State hasn’t been able to sit still for a moment in its 64 years of existence due to continual physical and political attacks from its neighbors.  Maybe it is all this pressure that has put Israel at the front of the technological race to build a better world.

Runners know the importance of oxygen both in training and in competition. Dr. Shai Efrati, of Tel Aviv University is at the forefront of research into its use for the treatment of stroke victims.  His studies showed that even those treated 3 years after their strokes showed significantly increased neuronal activity following a two-month course of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).

A 47-year-old Slovenian former athlete was immobilized when his knee cartilage was damaged due to a volleyball injury over seven years ago.  Thanks to the Agili-C implant from Israel’s CartiHeal his cartilage has been regenerated. A year after his surgery, he completed a 180 km cycling marathon.

Stem cells have unique reproductive, renewal, and regenerative capabilities for organs.  So it was good to hear that the British Israel Research and Academic Exchange Partnership (BIRAX) will grant NIS 25 million over five years for seven joint Israel-UK stem cell research programs.


Good news for US doctors who want a fast track entrance to the Israeli profession.  Now physicians who have passed American MD exams (USMLE) in the past ten years, and who want to settle and work in Israel, will receive exemption from the local licensing exam.  This is the first time that Israeli health authorities have accepted foreign test results for an MD license.  There are plenty of fertile prospects for those making a new life in the Jewish State.  Britain’s “father of fertility” Lord Professor Robert Winston gave a keynote lecture at Haifa University’s January conference on regenerative medicine.  The conference coincided with news that the IMSI fertility treatment developed by Benjamin Bartoov of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, is bringing a hope to childless couples in India’s capital city.


When children suffer from the genetic brain disease Peripheral neuropathy they do not move at all.  Now, following a breakthrough by Doctors at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, three infants previously paralyzed by the disease are already showing signs of improvement.  Meanwhile, researchers at Israel’s Schneider Children's hospital and in Germany have identified mutations in genes EIF2S3 and UBE3B as responsible for the development of genetic mental retardation.  The discovery may not help existing sufferers, but it certainly improves pre-natal diagnostics tools for prevention of genetic diseases.

When humans want to really travel at speed, they use vehicles such as the Chevy Corvette C7 Stingray with Israeli-built body panels as featured in last week’s blog.  But some of us would be quite happy to nip in and out of town in the all-electric Renault Twizy that the Israeli city of Kfar Saba is about to trial.


Top of the range automobiles built by China’s car-giant BYD will be equipped with entertainment systems powered by Multimedia Broadcasting receiver chipsets from Israel’s Siano.  And if any of these aforementioned vehicles should get stuck in this winter’s snow and ice, they can install Israel Zahavi’s “Power Wheel” – a removable disc that fits on the hub of the vehicle’s tires. Inside are twenty metal bars that can be manually or automatically telescoped out beyond the circumference of the tire to raise the vehicle slightly and grip the road.

Sometimes events happen so fast that you can only see what has happened on camera.  Fortunately, Israeli technology leads the way in this arena.  Project “Safe City Surat” will install over 5000 security cameras plus software from Israel’s Verint, to monitor traffic and crime in India’s eighth largest city.  You can even fit Israeli security systems inside your own home. Israeli WiFi chip manufacturer Celeno has teamed up with Quanto – the world’s largest notebook manufacturer – to build a wireless IP camera network for security and home monitoring.  But just take a look at the future for 3D movement sensing technology as demonstrated by Israel’s PrimeSense, responsible for the success of Microsoft’s Kinetic. 


There are still some opportunities to take a few moments rest in these high-speed times.  The "Lonely Planet" travel guide ranks Tel Aviv's beach as the seventh best in the world.  Or you could explore the upcoming Herod exhibition at the Israel museum.  But if you want the ultimate in relaxation devices, Israel’s Silentium can eliminate noise and create a “bubble” of silence at home, office or in public places. 


Finally, they may have thought that the world had passed them by, but sixty years after Operation “Magic Carpet” the last remnants of the Jewish community of Yemen are making their way home to the Jewish State.  They sure have some catching up to do.

For all those who want to progress, Israel has arrived just in time. 

Michael Ordman writes a free weekly newsletter containing Good News stories about Israel.
For a free subscription, email a request to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.com