Along with politics and culture, Tel Aviv-based freelance journalist Larry Luxner reports on orphan disease research for MM+M and Rare Disease Advisor. In this special episode, he tells Marc Iskowitz about how his medical coverage has been affected by the October 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, as well as the mental trauma sure to haunt victims on both sides of this conflict.
Note: The MM+M Podcast uses speech-recognition software to generate transcripts, which may contain errors. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast.
Hey, this is Mark. We have a special episode of the imminent podcast for you this week concerning what happened on October 7th. When Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack stormed into Israel and committed many brutal horrific acts on innocent civilians both in the small communities known as Cuban team and then a music festival and took nearly 200 hostages and in the aftermath of the terrorist attack as a humanitarian crisis escalates in Gaza many Palestinians are suffering as well either from the lack of basic necessities or Worse following victim themselves as the two sides dig in for what could be a long conflict from afar amidst the haze of media coverage not all of which is initially factual or puts events in the proper historical context. We can’t always appreciate the disruptive effects of War to gain a better understanding we’re bringing you a conversation with someone in our own industry. Larry luxner is one of the foremost Healthcare journalists who from his home base in Tel Aviv, covers International rare disease research here. He offers his perspective on the war and how he’s been impacted both professionally and personally, this is part of the package of
Since we’re working on to explain the Hamas Israel war through a life sciences industry lens. We hope you enjoy it.
Since
the terrorist attacks of about a week ago on Israel by Hamas obviously Larry’s life has been disrupted both professionally and personally and so we wanted to you know, check in with him. Make sure he’s okay and get his perspective on the unfolding situation there. Larry has written for mmm as I’m sure readers have seen his byline as well as with some of Eminem’s sister Publications, where disease advisor and the American Journal of endocannabinoid Medicine you’ll hear him refer to that a few times during the conversation and he hosts some podcasts to boot. So without further Ado Larry, how are you?
I’m fine
and welcome to the podcast.
Thank you. Thank you Mark live in kicking here in Tirana, Albania,
and we’ll get to that a little bit later. So you’re actually in Albania. Now, we’re speaking with you over our virtual podcasting platform talk a little bit about your professional role how long you’ve you’ve been writing overall and then kind of Segway into you know, the Haymarket
Applications and what you do for them?
Sure. Well since mid 2021, I’ve been covering rare diseases, of course for rare disease advisor based in Israel, but frequently writing stories about patients about research particularly with diseases everything from cystic fibrosis to spinal muscular atrophy pulmonary hypertension to Fredericks Ataxia. We currently cover 36 rare diseases and I do it from my base in Tel Aviv and have covered numerous conferences both in the United States and Europe. And in addition to the Articles. I’ve also hosted the rare care podcast and these podcasts are embedded in the text of our online stories and they frequently feature researchers the Leading Edge of research and this could be anything from gene therapy to let’s say Diagnostics better and quicker diagnosis of specific rare diseases and a Patient Advocates who
Who advocate for Better Lives for the patients who have those diseases both at the state and National levels
create a new she told me offline you probably record recorded over a hundred of these rare care podcasts, which is quite an eye-popping figure we
have so for example, we’ve interviewed everybody from Doctor Adrian Crainer who is the basically the geneticist who discovered spinraza, which is of course the miracle drug for a spinal muscular atrophy and he’s with the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory in Long Island. We’ve also interviewed for example, midi Henderson who was an essay Advocate with them muscular dystrophy Association. We recently talked to Jennifer Miller who is a leading researcher at the University of Florida who has probably done more research on Friday or Willie syndrome than anybody I know and we’ve talked to know the Greenspan who is a new york-based pulmonologist and he runs a clinic for patients with
Both pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension and the list goes on and on I could go for on for a long time. But basically we try to find leaders. You know, I don’t like the expression kols but we do look for opinion leaders and and newsmakers who specialize in the rare diseases that are of interest to our audience
sure sure. It’s really fascinating, you know kind of talking with these leading Physicians who are leading as clinical investigators clinical trials that end up as products in the market that we then write about on mnm, you know, you’re probably going through a very rough time Larry in terms of the situation, but I would love to get your perspective on how the war is affecting you professionally and personally
thank you appreciate that. Well, it wasn’t easy waking up at 6:34 in the morning with the sound of an air raid siren screaming right outside our window. It’s something I’ve heard before. It’s I can’t say it’s the
Time remember that three years ago. We were involved in a Gaza Skirmish, which we thought was a war at the time but now it compares to what’s going on. Now. It was nothing at that time. We had two or three missiles right Tel Aviv at 6:34 on the morning of October 7th.
It was over a hundred misses. And when I looked at the app that every Israeli has on his phone it was covered with red dots literally the center the coast and all of central Israel was blanketed with red dots and each one of those dots represented an incoming an incoming rocket. Fortunately. We have the Iron Dome which shoots down about 90% of those incoming but it doesn’t get everything and so of course that first day we were stunned I thought I thought I told my wife I said this got to be a mistake this cannot be real. There’s no way this is real but then we heard the booms outside and then we knew it was very real and you know, when it booms the whole building shakes, you know that this isn’t the drill. Unfortunately. Our building is very old it was built in the 50s. We don’t have a bomb shelter. We don’t have a safe room and the only safe place to go is is the stairwell which is exactly what all the neighbors do they run to the stairwell with their
Kids their dogs in the middle of the night. Sometimes the kids are crying. The dogs are barking cats are meowing. It’s it’s a real nightmare, especially when it goes on and on and on so that was our introduction to this war.
Wow, you know, this is a medical marketing podcast. So I want to also ask you, you know for a professional perspective. You have a regular Circuit of events that you do cover as part of your, you know coverage talk about some of the impact in that from that regard to the meetings that you weren’t able to attend.
Sure, the day after this war started. I was supposed to go to Paris to cover a figure conference on maternal Health on behalf of rare disease advisor. Obviously, once this started almost every Airline canceled flight. So that was gone from there. I was supposed to go to New York and from New York to Washington to cover the National Organization of rare disorders Nord annual orphan drug. Summit couldn’t do that either. So pretty much the entire trip was shot. I can tell you that about two hours after this war started. We went to Hilo which the largest hospital in Tel Aviv in an attempt to give blood and so many people showed up to give blood that literally people were being turned away. And while we were waiting to give blood there were more attacks and and we were the whole building shake and they heard it everybody into the underground shelter of television’s largest hospital just to be on a safe side. Nobody was hurt and then after a few
Is well came out and got back in line.
Well, you know, I think there’s a pretty good awareness level that you know that this was a very not just a scary attack, but it was in the bloodiest day and Jewish history since the Holocaust or at least, you know, certainly since the war of independence 48 and The Six Day War 67 and people were hearkening back to the young Kipper war in 1973. What kind of support and solidarity have you heard from the medical establishment other leaders in the field?
I can tell you this much you mentioned the very I think a very appropriate comparison to the young people War just the day before we should note that October 6th. 1973 is the day that Israel is surprised by its neighbors and we’ve got a very nice present from Egypt in Syria. And this was the worst surprise that we have ever had in our history.
The day before this war was the 50th anniversary of that war TV was filled with programs marking that war and how Israel was surprised and how it will never happen again should never happen again and the very next day it happened again, so you can imagine the frustration and the anger and the fear that Israelis felt that we were caught basically with our pants down and and nobody saw it coming. Unfortunately. There was an immediate outpouring of support and love from everybody. I can tell you on a personal level. I received text messages Facebook notes messenger. What’s up LinkedIn from friends and colleagues around the world people even in the rare disease Community go ahead and talk to you in a while checking up to make sure I was okay. I got notes from Argentina from Brazil from Paraguay even from countries at war with each other from Armenia from us by John from Russia from Ukraine. Even I got notes from Cuba people were really
Worried didn’t matter if they were Jewish Muslim or Christian. I got I got text from colleagues in Bangladesh. Even somebody from the Emirates somebody from Saudi Arabia, you know, when it comes to Medicine those things don’t really matter and we were very very heartened by the strong show support from the United States particularly from President Biden. I must say this was by far the strongest speech any US president has ever given I think a lot of this was motivated just by the horror of the images coming out of the keyboard seam around Gaza. Nobody had expected such such a nightmare. It wasn’t just it wasn’t just a terrorist attack. It was vicious. It was cruel. I don’t need to go into the details of how awful these these pictures were. Let’s just say that average terrorist attacks, you know, maybe 10 20 even 25 people. We’ve never had anything like this 1,300 Israelis work basically murdered in Cold Blood the vast majority of them.
Is and not to mention over 3,000 injured and at last we know 199 hostages taken into Gaza and nobody knows what their fate is.
Yeah, and not only for the for the loss, you know our hearts go out also, you know for the hostages, you know, and their well-being and where do you see the situation going from here Larry given the political realities there and Israel and you know the fact that as you said, you know that the country was caught off guard.
I can tell you this the obviously the longer this conflict goes on the less Israel will be supported around the world and the more it will be criticized. Look it’s all a matter of body counts. It’s true that usually when things like this happen tennis Israelis died 100 pound stadiums 50 Israelis 500 pounds. It’s it’s never proportionate. But this idea of proportional response to me is absolutely ridiculous because you know, why should there be a proportional response, you know, the fact is and this isn’t even a political. In fact is that in Israel? We do everything we can to protect our citizens whether they’re Jewish Arab doesn’t matter. We have bomb shelters. We have safe houses, even if even if you have to run into a public building, unfortunately on the other side in Gaza, there are not only not any facilities, but their intentionally locating their factories their missile launchers in hospitals in maths in
Levels in private homes in apartment buildings so that we are forced to hit back and kill people and in my opinion, you know, I mean you want to talk about ethics or medicine or their their there’s no justification for this. So by that very definition the body count on the Palestine inside will be higher and unfortunately, I don’t see any way around this. I know that a lot of people say this is a political problem and there can be only political solution. I personally believe in a two-state solution. I think how things should have their own State. However, it’s important to note that those people who are killed in this attack. We’re not political people and if anything they were lefties they were peace Nicks these were you know, free love people listenings. These were people who wanted peace with God that they wanted they they wanted they wanted a solution. They wanted to live together. And these were not right wing Fanatics. They were not supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu of anything. They couldn’t stand
You know and they’re the ones who pay the price with their lives.
You point out, you know, the two-state solution some of the news outlets have said that this occurred some of the more liberal ones, you know, probably to be frank that this occurred because of Israel’s refusal to accept the two State solution. But you know that just seems silly given the reality that you know, it’s not as the Hamas really support the two State solution, but they want as a dissolution of Israel. So
we should point out also that the Palestinian Authority people say, well, you know, this is the government they just the guys didn’t really choose Hamas Hamas over through the Palestinian Authority a year after Israel pulled out and withdrew, you know laterally from Gaza. So in effect Hamas rolls them as a criminal organization as a mafia and has total control over the lives of 2.3 million people in the Gaza Strip conditions are miserable, but that is not necessarily Israel’s fault is a fault of this Hamas regime that is taking
All the cement that the world is given, you know resources food. I mean even yesterday there was a report that from not from Israel, but from the United Nations from UNICEF from anura the United Nations really forces really affords agency that Hamas had appropriated first aid kits that were meant for
that were meant for people and they took them they took those kids for themselves to protect the terrorists. I should also say that the plans were found on these on these terrorists and I don’t call them militants. I call them terrorists because that’s what they are. They detailed plans. A lot of them had worked in these people seen they knew them intimately. They knew where the children’s are with the nursery. They know where the schools were and their instructions were to kill and torture as many people as possible. They knew which buildings to hit because a lot of them had worked there. They knew they spoke Hebrew fluently. And so many of these people not only were were attacked in their homes, but they were burned alive. And you know, we’re talking about Mothers Daughters babies children. You cannot Nobody by any stretch the imagination can say that they were that they were soldiers. I mean, some of them were soldiers not on duty but most of the more civilians and they certainly were not settlers, you know settlers.
Refer to those living in in the West Bank not within pre-1967 borders. These were people living in kibuting within Israel proper. They were not settlers and I have seen a lot of unfortunately a lot of propaganda referring to them as settlers. They were not.
Yeah. Thank you for pointing all that out. It’s obviously a very multi-layered situation a lot of nuance. It’s not being, you know told in the most factual way. So thank you for correcting those facts and you know, you have to think about the mental health toll that this is going to be taking on the survivors, you know that, you know, even if they do live through this, you know, you wonder what their life is gonna be like now and even people, you know, running the rank and file Israelis, you know, like yourself who you know, thank goodness, you’re able to, you know, get out of the country and be safe and make sure your family is safe and it’s going to have an effect just living through that
mental health impact is severe and
Particularly those Israelis living in cities like stero who have endured this for years, you know, fortunately in Tel Aviv, we have a 90 second window when when there’s an incoming missile. We have 90 seconds to get to safety during which time of Iron Dome can you know, presumably find that missile and take it out. Unfortunately, those people who live in stero, they don’t have 90 seconds. It’s more like 10 seconds if that imagine living a life for and any given moment you have 10 seconds to run for for your safety and for your life and that 10 seconds often does mean the difference between life and death the impact. The mental in fact on children is profound. I mean sterile has been evacuated. Nobody knows when they can go back now Settlements a little I don’t mean settlements in the in the political sense, but towns Villages people would see more shavim in the north along the border with Lebanon have been completely evacuated in the unfortun.
And event that has blood joins the fight and and then we’ll be fighting on two fronts. We’re hoping and playing with that doesn’t happen.
Yes. Yes, we are too.
Tell us again where you are Larry right now and and that you’re in a safe place, please.
I’m an Albania. I I came here because it’s safe. It’s a wonderful country. It’s my seventh trip here and albanya is it’s I want to use to be the poorest country in Europe the Communist isolate isolationist dictatorship and I was changed completely 180 degrees and from here. I’m going to Brussels to cover the European Huntington association annual conference on Huntington disease
wonderful and it’s a great that you know, the your readers in the world is still getting a chance to see your byline because that’s very meaningful and I should I should say well we’re gonna post some pictures of this interview on social but you know, Larry is a nice view of the Albanian Skyline as a window there. Thank you. So let’s just I want to give you the final word Larry you mentioned a lot of themes compassion and need for compassion, you know the need for support at this difficult time and I want to give you the last word here when you say to our listeners.
Thank you. I want to say that it’s traditional in in Jewish thought and and also in modern Israelis Society. We don’t we don’t Rejoice at the death of enemies and certainly children are not our enemy. I want to distinguish between and it’s a very important to make this distinction between Palestinians and Hamas. Our goal isn’t to kill people our goal isn’t to destroy the dream of an independent Palestine next to Israel. Our goal is not to is not to increase the body count. Unfortunately. That is the goal of Hamas both the Jewish and the Palestinian body count because it serves their interests that is not what we want. We want peace. We want an end to this. I personally would love to see our government collapse. I think our leadership in Israel has been a nightmare. We were not prepared for this attack. The government has been focusing on on judicial reform we have we’re being led by
Corrupt prime minister who is facing indictments, you know shades of what’s going on in the US as well. And and we believe that we need new leadership that is really going to protect us and pursue some kind of final settlement with with our neighbors and that to me is long-term the only solution.
Yeah, and you know another great theme is the need for for Unity and putting our differences aside and you know, the divided country is not a strong country and that oftentimes, you know leads to perception of weakness
before this happened. Our biggest issue was they were demonstrations in the streets of Tel Aviv on on whether on whether men and women should be allowed to pray together on young people. This is a big massive violent demonstration, and there’s enough Center. Nobody could imagine that in the space of 24 hours. Our whole lives would be turned upside down perspectives would be shifted and actually this war
Brought us together Left Right religious secular, Joe even even Arabs. I mean these Hamas missiles and attacks are attacking Arabs. It’s not just Jews. It’s not just Israelis Thai is Philippines Mexicans argentines nepales and Americans Canadians Brits French enormous numbers of farmers have been affected by this as well. I think there’s been nothing that I can remember in my life that has brought Israeli Society together at the Grassroots level to help one another and to ensure that people are going to make it through this tragedy.
Yeah. Well, it’s a wonderful words Larry. I want to thank you again, you know for your heartfelt perspective and for taking the time stay safe, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.
Thank you and pleasure.
