RUTHFULLY YOURS

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Regenerating liver function. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s BiolineRX in conjunction with Ben Gurion University, Hadassah Medical Center and Novartis has developed a novel treatment BL-1220 that can restore liver function in patients with liver disease and injury. http://www.biolinerx.com/default.asp?pageid=16&itemid=469

Success in trials of tardive dyskinesia treatment. (TY Atid-EDI) I highlighted (Dec 2015) Teva’s SD-809 (deutetrabenazine) treatment for tardive dyskinesia. The disease causes uncontrollable movements in around 500,000 US patients. The second Phase III trial of the treatment produced statistically significant results.
http://www.tevapharm.com/news/teva_announces_positive_top_line_data_from_second_phase_iii_study_of_sd_809_in_tardive_dyskinesia_td_09_16.aspx

New treatment for Alzheimer’s. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Neurim is conducting a Phase 2 trial of its Piromelatine treatment, for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The 26-week trial will compare once-daily oral doses of Piromelatine to placebo in approximately 500 patients diagnosed with mild AD.
http://www.neurim.com/news/2016-09-28/neurim-pharmaceuticals-announces-first-patients-enrollments-in-recognition-phase-ii-clinical-trial-of-piromelatine-for-mild-alzheimers-disease/

Diagnoses using molecular biomarkers. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s ImmunArray is developing blood-based tests that support the diagnosis and management of complex acute and chronic immune and neurodegenerative diseases, including brain injury. It has just received a major investment from America’s Quanterix Corporation.
http://www.immunarray.com/2016/09/28/quanterix-and-immunarray-teaming-up-to-address-neurodegenerative-disease/

Filling a gap in dental services. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s CephX provides dental and orthodontic practitioners with Cephalometric X-Ray analyses, image archiving and patient record management – all securely maintained on the cloud (rather in the dental surgery).
https://cephx.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfMyaTqGUx0

Pomegranate oil to protect the brain. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Granalix has launched GranaGard – a food supplement that prevented neurodegeneration diseases in clinical tests. GranaGard, is a submicron (nanodrops) Pomegranate Seed Oil emulsion with 80% Punicic acid – one of the strongest natural antioxidants.
https://granalix.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxYfRO2jPHE

Telehealth device gets FDA approval. I reported previously (Aug 2015) on Israel’s Tytocare and its handheld diagnostic device. The device has been enhanced and Tytocare has received US FDA clearance for its digital stethoscope that performs enhanced remote diagnosis of a patient without the physician being present.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161101005724/en
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8rwFMW5VhI

GE’s new CT-scanner is a Revolution. GE’s Haifa engineering team was a major player in developing the Revolution CT (Computed Tomography) scanner. It exposes patients to only 20% of the radiation of previous models and the scan takes less than a second. The first Israeli Revolution has been installed at Sheba Medical Center, near Tel Aviv. http://www.timesofisrael.com/ge-israel-team-plays-key-role-in-new-ct-scanner/

Lifesaving solutions. Israel’s Inovytec develops solutions for out-of-hospital medical emergencies, to increase patient survivability. These include the world’s first and only automated oxygen defibrillator, a safe airway management collar and an ultralight ventilator. It has just received funds from Germany’s Rohn Innovations.
http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-rhon-klinikum-invests-in-israeli-co-inovytec-1001160844
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgiXN6EoOr4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkFVYORL9Gw
http://www.inovytec.com/#

IDF field hospitals are the best in the world. Israel is the first country to earn the United Nations’ World Health Organization’s highest ranking for its IDF field hospital unit. It received “Type 3” designation, along with some additional “specialized care” recognitions, which technically made it a “Type 3 plus”.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/un-ranks-idf-emergency-medical-team-as-no-1-in-the-world/

More power to your hearing. (TY Atid-EDI) I reported previously (May 29) on the rechargeable hearing aid technology from Israel’s Humavox. Now leading hearing technology firm Starkey will integrate Humavox’s wireless charging into Starkey’s advanced hearing devices. Simply put the hearing aid in its box to recharge it.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161018005824/en/Humavox-Partners-Starkey-Hearing-Technologies-Bring-Wireless

For this reason, Israel concluded that the U.S. under Obama was not a reliable supplier of either helicopters or missiles.

Israel’s Spike is superior to the Hellfire. It has longer range, making it safer to use against an enemy that possesses shoulder-fired ground to air missiles.

Worse yet, despite Saudi Arabia’s horrible bombing performance in Yemen, the U.S. continues to sell billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and has stepped up shipments of munitions.

The Spike is a better option than the Hellfire and safer to use, which is why 25 nations now use the missile and 25,000 or more have been produced.

Sometimes when decisions do not work out exactly as intended, they work out just fine.

In the midst of Operation Protective Edge — Israel’s response to 182 Hamas rockets and mortars fired at Israeli towns and villages in the first week of July 2014 — the Obama administration accused Israel of “heavy handed battlefield tactics,” including the use of artillery instead of precision-guided munitions. U.S. President Barack Obama halted the supply of Hellfire missiles and announced that all military equipment supplied to Israel would be vetted individually in the White House, instead of shipped, according to prior agreements, by the Pentagon to Israel.

The President, it appears, had been reading wild press stories about the damage to Gaza — which ultimately turned out to be concentrated in areas in which Hamas was stockpiling munitions and rockets and conducting command and control operations, which included firing more than 2,700 rockets and missiles during the rest of July. Israel struck an UNRWA-administered school, prompting cries of outrage, but UNRWA later admitted that it covered up that Hamas had used the school for military operations.

The Hellfire decision was especially ironic because it is a precision munition, generally less broadly damaging than bombs dropped from aircraft. The Hellfire can be fired from airplanes, drones and helicopters.

Ironic, too, because the United States has used Hellfire missiles against terrorists — often without the permission of the countries in which the terrorists were killed. A Hellfire was used to kill Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Kahn, American citizens, in Yemen. Al-Awlaki was designated a terrorist, and Kahn the editor of the al-Qaeda magazine Inspire, but U.S. law may have been violated by their assassination.

Last Friday, a senior Iranian general confirmed that the Islamic Republic was manufacturing weapons including rockets in Aleppo and that some of those rockets were transferred to Hezbollah, bolstering the terror group’s already formidable stockpiles. The revelation of Iranian military production facilities in a foreign country was the first such acknowledgement by a senior Iranian official.

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Army, Major General Mohammad Bagheri noted that Iran’s production of missiles in Syria began in 2002 and that rockets manufactured at the Aleppo facility were transferred to Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon War also known as the Second Lebanon War. During that 33-day conflict, Hezbollah fired in excess of 4,000 rockets at Israel. Since the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah, primarily with Iranian assistance, has increased its rocket and missile arsenal tenfold, from 12,000 to an estimated 120,000.

The general’s acknowledgement provides us with some sense of how entrenched the Iranians are in Syria and how they’re utilizing Syrian resources to supply their proxies. It is believed that the Iranians are employing between 7,000 to 10,000 Hezbollah operatives in Syria. Hezbollah represents one of four foreign pillars propping up the Assad regime and his flagging army. Iran maintains a military force of between 13,000 to 16,000 soldiers and, aside from Hezbollah, is believed to have recruited some 40,000 foreign fighters from Middle Eastern and Central Asian states. Russia maintains a sizable air and naval presence in Syria, supplemented by Special Forces and electronic warfare specialists.

Israel is watching these developments with keen interest. The Israelis are cooperating closely with the Russians to ensure that that their respective military forces, particularly their air forces don’t mistakenly tangle over the skies of Syria. The last time Israel dueled with the Russians was in July 1970 over the skies of the Suez Canal, during the height of the Cold War. Five Soviet MiG-21 fighters were shot down by Israeli F-4 Phantoms and Mirage jets. But so far, the Israelis and the Russians have managed to avoid hostile encounters with each other due to unprecedented cooperation between their respective military and political leaders.

What can we expect from President-elect Donald Trump’s administration?

The positions that Trump struck during the presidential campaign were sometimes inconsistent and even contradictory. So it is impossible to forecast precisely what he will do in office. But not everything is shrouded in mystery. Indeed, some important characteristics of his administration are already apparent.

First of all, President Barack Obama’s legacy will die the moment he leaves the White House on January 20. Republicans may not agree on much. But Trump and his party do agree that Obama’s policies must be abandoned and replaced. And they will work together to roll back all of Obama’s actions as president.

On the domestic policy front this means first and foremost that Obamacare will be repealed and replaced with health industry reforms that open the medical insurance market to competition.

With the support of the Republican-controlled Senate, Trump will end Obama’s push to reshape the US Supreme Court in the image of the activist, indeed, authoritarian Israeli Supreme Court. During his four-year term, Trump may appoint as many as four out of nine justices. In so doing he will shape the court for the next generation. Trump made clear during the race that the justices he selects will oppose the Obama-led leftist plan to transform the court into an imperial judiciary that determines social and cultural norms and legislates from the bench.

Trump will also clean out the Internal Revenue Service. Under Obama, the IRS became an instrument of political warfare. Conservative and right-wing pro-Israel groups were systematically discriminated against and targeted for abuse. It is possible to assume that Trump will fire the IRS officials who have been involved in this discriminatory abuse of power.

A top policy adviser to Donald Trump during his campaign said the president-elect doesn’t view Israeli settlements built in disputed areas as an obstacle to peace, a position sharply at odds with Obama administration policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Obama administration opposes Israel’s settlement building, and has ramped up criticism from previous administrations—both Republican and Democratic—of the activity.

Jason Greenblatt, who Mr. Trump named co-chair of an Israel policy committee during his campaign in July, on Thursday played down any risk from the building activity to peace prospects.

“Mr. Trump does not view the settlements as being an obstacle for peace,” Mr. Greenblatt told Israel’s Army Radio. “The two sides are going to have to decide how to deal with that region, but it’s certainly not Mr. Trump’s view that settlement activity should be condemned and that it is an obstacle to peace. It is not the obstacle to peace.”

Mr. Greenblatt is an executive vice president and chief legal officer of the Trump Organization. He said he would be honored to serve in a Trump administration and work on issues including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but that it was too early to say whether he would.

President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and other U.S. officials have said Israel’s construction of settlements is hindering the possibilities to reach a peace deal providing for side-by-side Jewish and Palestinian states, a U.S. goal since the 1980s.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday that Mr. Greenblatt’s comments contradict years of bipartisan U.S. policy.

“Trying to change facts on the ground only puts a negotiated settlement, a resolution of differences between the two parties, further away,” Mr. Earnest said at a press briefing. “So, the president views that kind of continued settlement expansion as counterproductive.”

Conservative Israeli lawmakers and Jewish settlers have welcomed the election of Mr. Trump as president, hoping he will move away from the decadeslong U.S. policy pursuing a two-state solution.

Mr. Trump in the past has been quoted approving of the Israeli settlements. On the campaign trail, he has promised to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The U.S. doesn’t recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as it awaits a two-state solution.

Aaron David Miller, a former adviser to Republican and Democratic secretaries of State, said Mr. Greenblatt’s comments suggest that the Trump administration is unlikely to raise the issue of settlement building with Israel as a potential problem. Mr. Trump has made contradictory statements that make it hard to predict what he might do, Mr. Miller said. CONTINUE AT SITE