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June 2015

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL: MICHAEL ORDMAN

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Bacteria test in minutes. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Pocared Diagnostics has developed a device that can identify the bacteria in a sample within minutes, rather than current tests that take several days. The P-1000 employs fluorescence, optical analysis and artificial intelligence. It can also test the bacteria’s resistance to antibiotics.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pocared-announces-real-time-identification-of-bacterial-species-and-antibiotic-resistance-markers-504239361.html http://www.pocared.com/products/p-1000/technology

A cure for addiction. In clinical tests, scientists at Israel’s Bar Ilan University working with Canada’s McGill University discovered DNA methylation changes occur during an addict’s withdrawal process. These changes increased cravings and by administering a DNA methylation inhibitor, the cravings ceased.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/study-going-cold-turkey-worsens-addiction/

10,000 operations for spinal surgery guidance system. (TY Atid-EDI) Spinal surgeons have now performed over 10,000 procedures using the Renaissance Guidance System (and its earlier Spine Assist version) developed by Israel’s Mazor Robotics. The system is now also being used to perform brain surgery.
http://mazorrobotics.com/mazor-robotics-guidance-system-successfully-completes-10000th-procedure/

$10 million to research genetic diseases. Canada’s Azrieli Foundation has donated $10 million to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for researching genetic disorders. The new Azrieli Center for Stem Cells and Genetic Research will focus on Down syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, diabetes, and Fragile X syndrome.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-azrieli-foundation-to-fund-hebrew-u-genetic-research-1001042110

And baby makes three. (TY Michelle) Israel’s Nuvo Group has developed the PregSense monitor for expectant mothers that need to keep a check on their fetus but do not require hospitalization. Sensors on an elastic harness transmit data via bluetooth to a smartphone for storage in the cloud that physicians can access.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/01/us-israel-mobile-foetus-monitor-idUSKBN0OH2NF20150601

Wristband stores medical profile. Israel’s MyMDband is a smart waterproof lifetime-guaranteed silicon band with a laser-engraved QR code on a stainless-steel buckle that displays all the data needed immediately after it’s scanned: prior medical conditions, current medications, allergies. Everything a paramedic needs to know.
http://www.israel21c.org/headlines/medics-create-smart-wearable-bands-with-complete-medical-profiles/

Triple treatment stops lung cancer returning. Researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute discovered how lung cancer cells adapt to stop the effectiveness of treatment that block tumor growth. So they have found a solution that targets the adaptations. Applying three treatments together stops tumor growth permanently.
http://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Health-and-Science/Weizmann-Institutes-triple-treatment-stops-lung-cancer-cells-in-lab-from-returning-404924

Annotating DNA to prevent cancer. Israel Prize laureate Dr. Haim (Howard) Cedar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem specializes in DNA annotation – the instructions that cells use to do their specific function. He is working to detect wrongly reproduced instructions in order to prevent, not merely cure, cancer.
http://www.yissum.co.il/media-center/news/27045

Hope for advanced cancer sufferers. Israel’s VBL Therapeutics reported good interim results from Phase 2 trials of its VB-111 cancer treatment. VB-111 reduced tumor size by at least 50% in most worst-case Mullerian (ovarian) cancer sufferers. It also extended the survival of patients with aggressive brain cancer (glioblastoma).
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/vbl-therapeutics-present-phase-1-181500462.html

UK cancer breakthrough – the Israeli connection. There was no mention of Israel in the international media reports about the recent cancer breakthrough at the Royal Marsden hospital in the UK. So I’d better tell you. Professor Jacob Schachter from Israel’s Sheba Medical Center was a key member of the UK’s research team. Please read my 4 Nov 2012 newsletter article and watch the youtube to see what Professor Schachter does.
http://nocamels.com/2015/06/drug-cocktail-immunotherapy-shrinks-cancerous-tumors/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UTGONr0GY4&feature=youtu.be

The doctor will see you now. Israel’s Teva is investing tens of millions of dollars in American Well – a telemedicine company founded by Israeli doctor brothers Ido and Roy Schoenberg. A patient can contact American Well who will summon a doctor to an immediate video call. It’s like an on-line house call.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-teva-invests-in-online-doctor-american-well-1001041616

JUDITH BERGMAN: FROGS IN A FRYING PAN

At the end of May, a seemingly small news story made it to the headlines of the British Jewish Chronicle ‎and the American Algemeiner. The gist of it was that France was scaling back the security of its Jewish ‎communities, even though anti-Semitic incidents average three per day according to the French anti-‎Semitism watchdog the Bureau National de Vigilance Contre l’Antisémitisme (BNVCA).‎

According to the Jewish Chronicle, “Congregants at some synagogues, particularly those outside urban ‎centers, have recently noted that at some nonreligious evening events, soldiers are present at the ‎beginning as participants arrive, but leave soon afterwards, leaving the buildings and the people inside ‎unprotected. … Some small shuls [synagogues] have been told that they will not be guarded for an event ‎that has fewer than 10 participants — this particularly has an impact on Orthodox communities, where a ‎few congregants come regularly to pray every morning.” Similarly, according to the paper, the rabbi of a ‎small Orthodox community on the outskirts of Paris, who asked not to be named, says his synagogue is ‎now under fairly minimal protection. “Realistically, we knew that level of protection wouldn’t last. It ‎couldn’t. At some point we won’t have any state protection anymore, so I’m planning to put in bulletproof ‎windows and stronger locks on the front door. In fact I think that it’s more reassuring than otherwise — it ‎means that the immediate threat level has gone down.”‎

The Case for Israel is Rooted in More than Security by Jeff Jacoby

NOSES WENT out of joint and knickers got in a twist when Israel’s new deputy foreign minister delivered her inaugural speech to the Jewish state’s diplomatic corps.

Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s new deputy foreign minister: “It is important to say that this country is ours, all of it. We didn’t come here to apologize for that.”
“We need to get back to the basic truth of our right to this land,” said Tzipi Hotovely, who is running the foreign ministry’s day-to-day operations, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retains the title of foreign minister. The land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people, she declared, and their claim to it is as old as the Bible. “It’s important to say this” when making Israel’s case before the world, and not to focus solely on Israel’s security interests. Of course security is a profound concern, Hotovely observed, but arguments grounded in justice, morality, and deep historical rights are stronger. She even quoted the medieval Jewish sage Rashi, who wrote that Genesis opens with God’s creation of the world to preempt any subsequent charge that the Jewish claim to the land was without merit.

TABITHA KOROL: JIHADISTS OF TOMORROW

Anti-Semitism is growing among German Muslim students. Following Koranic teachings, the early childhood brainwashing, and school books rife with politically biased indoctrination, these students openly declared that they will kill Jews, specifically threatening Max Moses Bonifer, student spokesman for the school system in Offenbach, Germany, a city of more than 16,000 Muslims. Teenage students in Landsberg, near Leipzig, were reported to be using Nazi slogans, and greeting “Heil Hitler,” with some sporting Hitlerian moustaches. Yet, despite the increase in anti-Semitism, Muslim and other immigrant students were exempted from partaking in the concentration camp visits required by the Holocaust educational programs.

”Severe intolerance and hatred does not happen overnight,” explains Dr. Tawfik Hamid, himself under threat from his co-religionists for teaching a peaceful understanding of Islam. “The indoctrination process, incremental and subtle, occurs in three stages – hatred, suppression of conscience, and desensitization to or acceptance of violence.” It is completed when the formerly young and innocent are capable of violence without remorse, no different than the Muslims who attacked synagogues in Germany after Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge” against Hamas, or the Nazis who participated in the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 10, 1938.

Attorneys at War – Inside an Elite Israeli Military Law Unit Willy Stern

For three straight days starting on July 15, 2014, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) made thousands of phone calls to the residents of Shejaiya in northern Gaza. The locals were encouraged to evacuate their homes before IDF tanks rolled across the border. Tens of thousands of leaflets were dropped into the village. These leaflets suggested both a safe evacuation route and safe destinations to head for within Gaza City. The IDF sent similar messages daily via local television and radio. But that’s not all. The IDF also made dozens of phone calls to Shejaiya’s influential citizens, asking them to get out the word of the impending IDF incursion.

Thousands and thousands of warnings were given. The Israeli military authorities essentially told the enemy where the IDF troops would enter the village and when. And for three days, Hamas fighters, no dummies, took full advantage. They dug their own forces in deeper. They activated booby-traps. They hid IEDs. They got snipers into perfect positions. They brought in additional fighters. They pre-positioned weapons. They readied their terror tunnels.