Following our speaker, AGM business will include a summary of DARA’s accomplishments and challenges last the year.  We will report on the survey results, and want to hear more from you about them and their implementation. 

The evening will begin with a light dinner and dessert. As usual, attendance is free.

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting.

Unfortunately the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published last week a slanderous article in its medical journal accusing Israeli forces of human rights violations in Gaza in this past summer’s Israeli defensive conflict Operation Protective Edge with Hamas.

Israeli forces are accused of Wide Ranging Human Rights Violations in Gaza Last Summer
BMJ 2015; 350 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h593 (Published 02 February 2015)

The article was particularly troubling in its use of an anti-Israel NGO Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR-I) as its main source. A very cursory search on this NGO reveals its clear bias, and quickly brings into question its ability to give credible reports.
As well detailed by NGO monitor, http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/preliminary_critique_of_phr_i_s_independent_medical_fact_finding_mission_
their ‘experts’ did not meet with Israeli government and military officials or injured civilians and soldiers. In addition, PHR-I ignored Hamas’ systematic exploitation of medical facilities to illegally shield combatants from Israeli counterattacks. The group used a Panel of “independent medical experts” to conduct this study with what are said to be international medical experts, unaffiliated with Israeli or Palestinian parties involved in the conflict” However, many of the fact-finding members are political activists with a history of biased remarks:

Alicia Vacas – Published a letter in support of Kairos Palestine, a document written by Palestinian-Christian activists that calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and denies the Jewish historical connection to Israel. In an article she published following her visit to Gaza, she refused to call the conflict a war, but rather a “massacre” and referred to Israel’s “devilishly sophisticated and flourishing industry of death”.

Laurel Baldwin-Ragaven – In an article published in the Lancet Journal (August 30, 2014), Baldwin and others compared Israel to an apartheid state and called “on South Africa to expel the Israeli ambassador during this current conflict.” Jennifer Leaning – Steering Group member of the highly politicized Lancet Palestine Health Alliance (LPHA). In 2009, she co-authored a piece in The Lancet, showing a photo of a damaged building described as the Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza. In fact, the picture was of an adjacent building. (The article has been removed.)

Önder Özkalipci – Coordinator and co-editor of the UN Istanbul Protocol, which alleged that Israel’s actions concerning the Mavi Marmara (2010) constituted torture. Since 2013, he is a freelance consultant to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and PHR-I.

Is it truly possible, that the author, Canadian freelance writer Owen Dyer was not aware of this at the time? All of this information was available with a Google search. When contacted by a DARA member by email asking this, he did not respond. Does the BMJ really consider use of an anti-Israel NGO as a credible source to report on this conflict? We urge all our members to read the article as well as the NGO monitor report on this group of “medical experts” as well.

Attached is NGO monitor response to the article http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h593/rr

We recommend all our members take action and respond to
1) Editor in chief – Fiona Godlee fgodlee@bmj.com
2) Please respond directly thru their website http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h593/submit-a-rapid-response
3) Owen Dyer, author owen_dyer@hotmail.com

We also wanted to bring to our members’ attention, that this week the UK parliament reviewed the Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, February 2015. Specifically last summer’s horrifying letter in the Lancet “Open Letter for the People of Gaza”, which was later discovered to have been co-written by authors with KKK sympathies, was specifically named. Lancet editor Richard Horton was specifically named in this report as well.

Sincerely,
DARA Executive

Alarming inroads are being made into medical journals by anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activists. DARA has been at the forefront of combating articles with anti-Israel bias in the medical literature since 2009. Given the recent anti-Israel publication in The Lancet, DARA has been hard at work on several initiatives.

We are requesting your presence at our Annual General Meeting on Sept. 10/2014 at Adath Israel Synagogue in Toronto at 7:30 pm. Light refreshments will be served.

We will be discussing the history of anti-Israel publications in the medical literature, including profiles of the authors over the past several years, and the lack of scientific standards in these articles.

We will also be discussing the ways DARA will be moving forward in dealing with this issue in the future as we expect it to continuously arise.

We are requesting your input at the meeting. We need your help. It is vital for as many of us as possible to attend this AGM. Please make every effort to attend and feel free to bring your colleagues and ideas. There is no charge.

Where: Adath Israel Synagogue, 37 Southbourne Ave, Toronto

When: Sept 10 – 7:30PM to 9:30PM

Disaster – are we ready?

Wednesday April 30, 2014
6 pm – 9:30 pm

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
McLaughlin Auditorium lecture hall, Ground floor, H wing
2075 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, ON M4N 3M5
Complimentary light dinner

Dr. Brian Schwartz – Chief, Emergency Preparedness & Executive Lead, Service Integration at Public Health Ontario; Associate Professor Dept. of Family & Community Medicine and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto “Public Health and Primary Care roles in a disaster: where do we fit?”

Prof. Pinchas (Pinny) Halpern – Chair of the Emergency Dept. at the Tel Aviv Medical Center; Clinical Associate Professor in Anesthesia, Critical Care & Emergency Medicine at Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel “Coping with multiple casualty incidents – often – lessons learned”

Dr. Daniel Kollek – Executive Director, Centre for Excellence in Emergency Preparedness, Hamilton, Ontario; past Chief of Emergency Medicine at Hamilton Civic Hospitals; Associate Professor McMaster University “Canadian Hospital Preparedness, what do we really know? “

c/o Mr. Tuncay Babali
Ambassador
Republic of Turkey
197 Wurtemburg Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1N 8L9

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan,

We are writing to express our grave concern for your government’s brutal suppression of democratic dissent, and your unacceptable attacks on our medical colleagues, whose sworn duty is to treat the injured and relieve suffering.

Your actions are besmirching Turkey’s name in the civilized world, and we implore you to change course.

Sincerely,
The Executive of DARA
Doctors Against Racism and Anti-Semitism
Canada

Enabling the Disabled: Groundbreaking Physical and Psycho-social Innovations

Sunday April 21, 2013
10 am – 1 pm

Mt. Sinai Hospital
600 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1X5

To watch the videos, click here.

DARA Conference 2013

Combined with this year’s Annual General Meeting, Doctors against Racism and Antisemitism presents Dr. Lawrence Hart, Professor of Medicine at McMaster University, and Staff Rheumatologist at St. Joseph’s Healthcare. Dr. Hart is also founder of the McMaster Jewish Faculty Association, and has held numerous leadership positions in community organizations. Dr. Hart draws on this extensive experience as he speaks about defending ourselves and supporting our students against antisemitism.

Join us at the Adath Israel Synagogue, 37 Southbourne Avenue, Toronto, on October 23, 7:30-9:30 pm, in the Abraham Granovsky Hall.

Following Dr. Hart’s presentation, there will be opportunities for discussion. We welcome questions, including ones based on your own experiences of antisemitism in the medical workplace. The evening concludes with DARA’s Annual General Meeting, an opportunity to learn more about DARA’s activities and to have your voice heard.

Light refreshments will be served.

“Israeli Doctors Accused of Collusion in Torture”. This is only an accusation, but when it appears in a piece of purportedly credible, medical journalism, it conveys a presumption of guilt. The reality is that this is a recent headline in the medical journal, The Lancet.

Sharmila Devi’s article makes claims and repeats statements inconsistent with objective journalism and clinical medicine. The tragic death of Arafat Jaradat, a 30-year-old father of two and member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, has been turned into an opportunity to besmirch the Israeli Medical community.

An autopsy conducted the next day by Israeli forensic pathologists concluded the likely cause of death to be a heart attack (myocardial infarction). It is not disputed that vigorous attempts at cardiopulmonary resuscitation were carried out for almost an hour. Palestinian Authority’s chief pathologist, Dr. Saber Aloul, who attended the autopsy, is reported as saying that “bruising on the body was evidence of torture.”

However anyone who has taken basic CPR training knows that the physical force required to provide adequate chest compressions in order to generate the necessary cardiac output invariably leads to chest trauma, not infrequently to rib and/or sternal fractures. Bruising would be clearly visible by the next day. For a doctor to conclude that bruising equals torture is unscientific and unprofessional. A previous study in The official journal of the European Resuscitation Council confirmed this, where fractures were found at autopsy of 18 of 19 patients (95%) who receives CPR. (Source Resuscitation: Volume 60, Issue 2, February 2004, Pages 157–162 andhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0300957203003757)

Dr. Michael Sayre, a spokesperson for the American Heart Association and a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, has previously said broken ribs are to be expected when doing CPR and the worry of causing a break shouldn’t deter people from helping someone in cardiac arrest.

Dr. Victor Quint, an anaesthesiologist at the Humber River Regional Hospital in Toronto stated, “Anyone who goes through CPR may look like a trauma victim.”

If Israeli doctors had anything to hide, would they invite Dr. Aloul to observe the autopsy? His attendance as the PA’s chief pathologist, contrasts sharply with the events which occurred 6 days following the death of Mr. Jaradat, whenAyman Samara, a 40-year-old Palestinian man, died in the Palestinian Authority’s Jericho Prison.

As Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh wrote,

“The Palestinian Authority has actively prevented Palestinian journalists from covering the mysterious death of Samara. One Palestinian reporter, who was caught interviewing people outside Jericho Prison, was even detained for several hours by Palestinian Authority security officers.”

The absence of any comment or reference to medical literature or non-biased expertise as relating to trauma induced during CPR, immediately places Ms. Devi’s article outside the realm of objective, medical/scientific publication standards. Responsibility for accepting the article for publication rests on The Lancet editor.

The Lancet is a reputable medical journal. But its unsubstantiated claims and inflammatory headlines vilify rather than inform and educate. The Lancet has diminished its credibility and betrayed an agenda unfit for trustworthy medical literature.

Please send your considered comments to Anne Rosenthal – Head of Public Relations at a.rosenthal@elsevier.com, the journal’s ombudsman at ombudsman@lancet.com or to Bill Godfrey – Chief Information Officer atb.godfrey@elsevier.com.

via Imad Moustapha, Ph.D.
Ambassador of Syria (US)

We are writing again out of deep concern how our (your) profession is prevented or penalized for carrying out their humanitarian duties in Syria.

We understand that some fifty four medical personnel (nurses, doctors, and medical students) have already been killed by your security forces.

As fellow medical professionals we raise our voices to demand an end to your forces’ murderous activities, stat.

Dr. Assad, you are besmirching the honour of the medical profession, whose basic humanitarian values you swore to uphold.

The Executive of DARA

Doctors Against Racism and Anti-Semitism

DARA Conference 2012 Flyer