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July 2020

ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on July 5th, 2020

http://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Treatment for Alzheimer’s and Covid-19. Israeli-founded AZTherapies is in Phase 3 trials for its ALZT-OP1 for Alzheimer’s disease. The treatment also suppresses the immune system’s “cytokine storm” that is often lethal to Covid-19 infected patients. AZTherapies is building commercial partnerships with Israeli institutions.

https://worldisraelnews.com/one-new-drug-may-treat-both-covid-19-and-alzheimers/

https://aztherapies.com/about-us/david-elmaleh-phd

Developing a mutation-proof Covid-19 vaccine.  Dr Frenkel-Morgenstern of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University has filed a US patent application for her research (see previously) on epitopes (proteins) that can build immunity against COVID-19. An advantage of such a vaccine is it will still work even if the virus mutates.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/mutation-proof-israeli-scientist-nears-vaccine-thatll-cope-with-covid-changes/

Israel’s best shots at a vaccine. (TY Hazel) A round-up of the leading Israeli prospects for a COVID-19 vaccine. One of them – the Israel Institute for Biological Research and the Weizmann Institute of Science – featured in the World Health Organization’s periodic report on international vaccine efforts.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/their-best-shots-israeli-efforts-to-invent-a-coronavirus-vaccine-explained/

From cancer to shrimps to a Covid-19 vaccine. Professor Avi Schroeder of Israel’s Technion (reported here previously) was working on a cancer cure using Elephant protein and a cure for a disease decimating the shrimp population. Then he discovered that the shrimp medication could also be adapted to make a Covid-19 vaccine.

https://technionuk.org/video/webinar-could-a-vaccine-for-shrimp-help-in-the-fight-against-covid-19-professor-avi-schroeder/   https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-scientist-could-adapt-shrimp-antiviral-for-humans/

Crowdsourcing for a Covid-19 algorithm. Scientists at Israel’s Technion are confident that they can monitor Covid-19 patients at home. For their algorithm that monitors oxygen levels, they issued an international call for statistics through an open source medical platform. They hope to receive tens of thousands of case files.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/globally-crowdsourcing-covid-stats-israeli-team-aims-to-boost-home-care-safety/

Cancer screening for UK NHS. Another instance of Israeli technology saving British lives. Israel’s Ibex Medical (reported here previously) is helping the UK’s National Health System (NHS) diagnose cancer from biopsies.  Ibex, has teamed up with UK’s LDPath to reduce pathology pressures on 24 different NHS trusts.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3836954,00.html

Israel is first to approve new AML cancer treatment. (TY Hazel) As soon as Phase 3 results were published, Israel added the new combo-therapy of venetoclax and azacytidine from global biotech AbbVie to the basket of treatments for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Israel had the most patients enrolled in the Phase 3 study.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israel-becomes-first-country-to-incorporate-breakthrough-leukemia-therapy-633285

Slowing down the aging process. (TY WIN) Researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have discovered, for the first time in mammals, that by slightly lowering body temperatures in mice, the animals lived 20 percent longer, Also, by reducing their oxygen level and increasing their CO2 level, their wounds healed faster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MycF-7T1zqY  https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/mice_lifespan.aspx

https://www.israel21c.org/researchers-can-extend-the-lifespan-of-mice-are-we-next/

Off-road rescue. United Hatzalah EMT Eilon crossed the Judean desert in 3 minutes to save the life of Elad – whose arm was almost severed in a car accident. Following Elad’s recovery, the Western Marble Arch synagogue in London (the Rabbi is Elad’s grandfather) donated an off-road ambucycle to United Hatzalah.

https://israelrescue.org/blog/london-community-donates-off-road-ambucycle-to-volunteer-who-saved-one-of-their-own/

Med-tech startups pitch up. (TY Charmaine) Five graduates of the Hadassah IBM Alpha Zone Accelerator presented their solutions to investors. Their products included wearable pain relief, distance eye diagnosis, preventing medication errors in hospitals, help for stroke patients and a brain-wave sleep headband.

https://www.ukisraelhub.com/event/il-hadassah-acclerator-class-2-demo-day/

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

COVID-19 is close to losing its epidemic status in the U.S., according to the CDC The percentage of coronavirus deaths in the country has been declining for ten straight weeks.

By on July 5th, 2020

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/covid-19-close-losing-its-epidemic

Coronavirus deaths in the country have nearly reached a level where the virus will cease to qualify as an epidemic under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rules, the federal agency reported on Friday. 

The CDC qualifies a disease outbreak as an “epidemic” if the number of deaths attributable to the disease exceeds a certain percentage of total deaths per week. That threshold for pneumonia, influenza and COVID-19 fluctuates slightly depending on the time of year, ranging from around 7% at the height of flu season to around 5% during less virulent months. 

CDC data indicate that deaths from those ailments began skyrocketing in the country around the second week of March, hitting a peak around early May and then plummeting quickly after that. 

The latest data show that the percentage of deaths in the country attributable to those factors had as of the last week in June reached its lowest point since the end of last year, becoming “equal to the [current] epidemic threshold of 5.9%,” the CDC said. 

The agency notes that the official tally of deaths “will likely change as more death certificates are processed, particularly for recent weeks.” Yet the number of deaths attributable to COVID-19, pneumonia and influenza have been declining for 10 straight weeks, the agency said on its website, suggesting COVID-19 may cease to qualify as an epidemic in the next few weeks. 

The welcome news comes as fear over a “second wave” of the virus has gripped the U.S., with some states experiencing fresh surges of COVID-19 along with increased hospitalizations. 

Though infections are significantly up in some places, deaths throughout the country have remained flat, due likely to several factors including a younger cohort of infections as well as improved treatment methods. 

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

A Magnificent Speech Looking back on the 2020 election, historians will say the Mt. Rushmore speech was the moment that Donald Trump won reelection. By Roger Kimball

By on July 5th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/04/a-magnificent-speech/

Donald Trump did not mention Lincoln’s First Inaugural address in his speech commemorating the spirit of American Independence at Mount Rushmore on Friday night. But the president’s speech—perhaps his most forceful and eloquent to date—vibrated with the same energy and existential commitment that fired Lincoln in March 1861. 

Lincoln came to office at a time of crisis. His election had precipitated the secession of seven Southern states. His inaugural address was both a plea for conciliation and unity as well as a warning that violence would be stopped with force. “We are not enemies, but friends,” Lincoln said. 

Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Donald Trump issued a kindred invitation to unity in the midst of conflict. The signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in July 1776 was a world-historical event. It represented, the president rightly said, “the culmination of thousands of years of Western Civilization—and the triumph not only of spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason.” At the center of the triumph was the animating possession of liberty, made possible by the unanimous affirmation of the principles Thomas Jefferson articulated in the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . .” 

The president’s speech was a passionate celebration of American freedom and American greatness—a greatness, he noted, that was embodied by the sublime majesty of the heads of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt sculpted into the granite pinnacle of Mt. Rushmore. 

But just as Lincoln spoke on the eve of civil war, so Donald Trump spoke in the midst of widespread and organized violence against the emblems and the spirit of the American promise. “[T]here is,” he warned, “a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought, struggled, and bled to secure.”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

“November’s Election – None of the Above?” Sydney Williams

By on July 5th, 2020

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

On a multiple-choice test “none of the above’ may be a legitimate response. But no matter how tempting that answer may seem to voters sick and tired of politics, such a response on November 3, 2020 is not acceptable. As we celebrate our country’s 244th birthday, we should consider the critical importance of the election four months out.

While no politician is the paragon of virtue drawn by Parson Weems of an idealized George Washington, character has slipped down the scale of traits we treasure when electing leaders. In 2020, we will be offered a choice between a man whose thin skin exposes a large ego, and a man whose intellectual capacity wanes as his defects wax. Mr. Trump’s flaws are well publicized – orange hair, ungrammatical speech, his volatility and personal insecurity seen in his untempered Tweets and his apparent admiration for dictators. But they are all superficial. No matter his appeasing words about Putin and Xi Jinping, he has been tougher on Russia and China than his predecessors. His dyed hair and manner of speaking may offend those raised in coastal, elitist families, but they are far less damaging to democracy than was the misuse of intelligence services by the Clinton campaign and the Obama Administration in undermining a freely elected President. Charges of corruption against Mr. Trump have been investigated for four years by a zealous press, a partisan House, Special Counsel Robert Mueller and a complicit FBI. They came to naught. On the other hand, mainstream media has been largely silent on financial favors sought by Mr. Biden for his son in Ukraine and China and on his alleged sexual assault on a staff member.

Nevertheless, and despite the impurity of both candidates, the single most important factor in this election has been the hijacking of the Democrat Party by illiberal, so-called “progressives.” Professor Wilfred McClay of the University of Oklahoma described the random and willful destruction of statues, acts condoned by many city mayors: “…these acts of destruction are acts of pure, unmitigated hate…,” hatred not dissimilar in its intensity to that levied against President Trump by the New York Times and the Washington Post. “Unless new leaders come forth,” wrote Heather MacDonald in City Journal this past week, “who understand their duty to maintain the rule of law, the country will not pull back from disaster.”

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