Israeli developed cures the BDS will find good reason to use, if they're ill.

I am on an email list from the US which informs anyone who wants to know about the science, engineering and other social changes flowing out of Israel. Here are two items from a very recent posting.

The first is how the fast-growing tobacco plant has been genetically engineered to provide, relatively cheaply, an otherwise very expensive drug called artemisinin. Given that "In Africa, 20 percent of childhood deaths are due to the effects of the disease and every 30 seconds a child dies from malaria", this cannot be anything other than a good thing. Indeed, the unnamed writer of the article notes, immediately before this quote, "[t]his groundbreaking research from Israel could be a significant stepping stone toward meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing child mortality by the end of 2015.”

The same issue of Israel21c also carries another article, this time on research at the Technion Institute's School of Medicine, Haifa, on the development of a new drug which will slow down the effects of Parkinson's disease. So we have Israeli researchers affecting life for the better at both ends of the life cycle: the very young and the elderly. That story is here

We'd all like to think that stories like these are all good, as indeed they are: note how both talk of the widespread, even world-wide, use of such drugs. Old cynic that I am, my guess is the the BDS mob merely have yet another couple of things to tell everyone to boycott, because they come from Israel.

I further suspect that they will find excellent reasons why their relatives (or indeed themselves) should use these drugs. After all, we're still waiting for them to stop using their cell phones and desk-top computers.

By Brian Goldfarb.


By the editor: old cynic that I am, in my opinion the real relief for the BDS crowd will come only when the learned professor Youdim develops a treatment for dementia. Let's wait...