IntroductionHair loss resulting from childhood irradiation for tinea capitis has been linked to m... more IntroductionHair loss resulting from childhood irradiation for tinea capitis has been linked to mental health effects in women. However, the association of hair loss severity with mental health in this population is unknown.ObjectivesThe aim of this study is to examine the association between hair loss severity and mental health outcomes in women irradiated for tinea capitis in childhood and to identify contributing factors to these outcomes.MethodsMedical records, held at the archives of Israel National Center for Compensation of Scalp Ringworm Victims, were retrospectively reviewed for 2509 women who received compensation for full or partial alopecia resulting from irradiation in childhood for tinea capitis. Mental health outcomes were determined by the number of mental health conditions reported.ResultsAmong women with high hair loss levels, risk was increased for a range of mental health problems, including depression symptoms, emotional distress, social anxiety, low self-esteem...
On March 21, 1973, Israel's Council of Higher Education (CHE) was convened by Yigal Alon, the Cou... more On March 21, 1973, Israel's Council of Higher Education (CHE) was convened by Yigal Alon, the Council's chair and the Minister of Education, to vote on whether to approve a proposal to establish a school of medicine in the Negev. In the preliminary discussion, Avraham Harman, the president of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem turned to Professor Moshe Prywes, the president of Ben-Gurion University in the Negev and commented: "Be assured, a school of medicine in Beer Sheva won't pass." At the close of the discussion, the twenty members of the CHE were asked to vote. The vote was a tie - 8 in favor, 8 against and 3 refrained. According to the CHE charter, the chairperson was required to break the tie. The minister - Yigal Alon, raised his hand in favor. Thus, by a bare voice, it was decided to establish a medical school in the Negev. This paper describes the processes that culminated in the approval of a school of medicine by the Council of Higher Education in March 1973. It presents the various personalities, agents, bodies and institutions that played a role in this process and their relative weights in the ultimate decision to establish a school of medicine in the Negev.
... pathologist, pediatrician, dentists, a pharmacist, eye-ear-nose and throat specialists and a ... more ... pathologist, pediatrician, dentists, a pharmacist, eye-ear-nose and throat specialists and a sanitary engineer" (Marlin Levin, Balm in Gilead: The Story of ... 40-41, 49-56, 70-73; J. Lee Kreader, "America's Prophet for Social Security: A Biography of Isaac Max Rubinow" (Ph.D. diss ...
After World War I, ringworm reached epidemic proportions among children in Jewish communities in ... more After World War I, ringworm reached epidemic proportions among children in Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and North Africa, blocking the possibility of immigrating to the West and to Israel. To fight this epidemic, between 1921 and 1938 the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe organized a ringworm eradication campaign by establishing irradiation centers and training nurses and doctors to treat the disease. In the course of the campaign 27,000 children were treated for ringworm with irradiation. In a similar campaign in North Africa between the years 1947 and 1960, some 22,000 Jewish children with ringworm were treated. Because most of the ringworm children from Eastern Europe perished in the Holocaust, discovery of the latent health risks of irradiation in childhood were never known; the remaining remnant immigrated to Israel and the United States. Most of the North African children immigrated to Israel.
In 1950, a full-scale eradication campaign for ringworm (tinea capitis, mycosis) employing ionizi... more In 1950, a full-scale eradication campaign for ringworm (tinea capitis, mycosis) employing ionizing radiation was launched in former Yugoslavia (Serbia today), with UNICEF’s assistance. The number of individuals treated (49,389) was among the highest ever reported in a public health campaign in Europe and North America. Treatment was compulsory, and children were treated in the absence of their parents, with full compliance to the medical authorities, as was common practice under President Tito’s Communist regime. Despite the large numbers of children who were irradiated for ringworm in Yugoslavia, the mass treatment was entirely forgotten. Discovery of documentation of ringworm irradiation in Serbia in 2006 made it possible to publicize the fact, to identify and to locate children who had been treated for ringworm in Serbia who today are aged 65 to 75, and to inform the medical community caring for this population.
In July 1973, a study at the University of Chicago linked radiation treatment in childhood to a v... more In July 1973, a study at the University of Chicago linked radiation treatment in childhood to a variety of diseases, including thyroid cancer. A few months later, a worker at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago found a registry of 5,266 former patients who had been treated with radiation during the 1950s and 1960s. Hospital officials decided to contact these patients and arrange for follow-up medical examinations. Media coverage of the hospital’s campaign prompted more medical institutions to follow suit and, subsequently, a nationwide campaign launched by the National Cancer Institute to warn the medical community and the public about the late effects of ionizing radiation. This chapter discusses how the action of one hospital in Chicago and the media attention it attracted led to a national campaign to warn those who underwent radiation treatment in childhood.
Neighborhoods (1952). The book was a strategic public relations tool, and its royalties provided ... more Neighborhoods (1952). The book was a strategic public relations tool, and its royalties provided crucial funding for the FNS, which, until the advent of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, did not accept government funding. Goan takes us behind the simple story of the FNS to understand the factors that drove Breckinridge to design and fight for this striking health care delivery system. She skillfully analyzes how Breckinridge constructed the mythology around the FNS. Breckinridge was the consummate publicist, creating a persona that attracted the attention she needed, financial and otherwise, to maintain the organization. Goan is best in pointing out the complexities and contradictions evident in Breckinridge’s work, such as the way her class and racial biases played out at the same time as she attempted to improve conditions in Leslie County. Clearly impressed with the founder of the FNS, Goan often points out how other historians have slighted Breckinridge’s intentions. Yet, Goan reaches beyond her sources in striving to explain Breckinridge’s motivations. To give one example, in the 1950s, there was an increasing demand for hospitalized childbirth. Goan claims that despite the community’s needs, Breckinridge resisted expanding her hospital, and that this “reflect[ed] her desire to maintain her organization’s distinctiveness [as a frontier service]” (p. 234). That is possible, but there is nothing to substantiate the author’s claim. Undocumented assertions such as these mar an otherwise interesting biography of a health care visionary.
After World War I, ringworm reached epidemic proportions among children in Jewish communities in ... more After World War I, ringworm reached epidemic proportions among children in Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and North Africa, blocking the possibility of immigrating to the West and to Israel. To fight this epidemic, between 1921 and 1938 the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe organized a ringworm eradication campaign by establishing irradiation centers and training nurses and doctors to treat the disease. In the course of the campaign 27,000 children were treated for ringworm with irradiation. In a similar campaign in North Africa between the years 1947 and 1960, some 22,000 Jewish children with ringworm were treated. Because most of the ringworm children from Eastern Europe perished in the Holocaust, discovery of the latent health risks of irradiation in childhood were never known; the remaining remnant immigrated to Israel and the United States. Most of the North African children immigrated to Israel.
The Israel Medical Association journal : IMAJ, 2001
On 1 January 1995 a new mandatory National Health Insurance Law was enacted in Israel. The new la... more On 1 January 1995 a new mandatory National Health Insurance Law was enacted in Israel. The new law fostered competition among the four major Israeli healthcare providers (HMOs or sick funds) already operating in the market due to the possibility that an unlimited number of patients and the relative budget share would shift among the HMOs. This led them to launch advertising campaigns to attract new members. To examine newspaper advertising activities during the early stages of healthcare market reform in Israel. Advertising efforts were reviewed during a study period of 24 months (July 1994 to June 1996). Advertisements were analyzed in terms of marketing strategy, costs and quality of information. During the study period 412 newspaper advertisements were collected. The total advertising costs by all HMOs was approximately US$4 million in 1996 prices. Differences were found in marketing strategy, relative advertising costs, contents and priorities among the HMOs. The content of HMOs...
The practice of using x-rays for the medical treatment of benign diseases began in the 1920s and ... more The practice of using x-rays for the medical treatment of benign diseases began in the 1920s and peaked in the 1940s and 1950s. Radiation therapy was considered good medical practice during the first decades of the 20th century and was very effective at controlling and eliminating ringworm (tinea capitis), an epidemic that was spread mainly among children. Results were often immediate. In the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and North Africa, hundreds of thousands of children were treated with radiation therapy for ringworm of the scalp. X-ray treatment gradually came to an end in the 1960s when other effective oral treatments were developed (e.g., griseofulvin for ringworm). In parallel, studies started to suggest that radiation exposure, especially in childhood, might increase the risk for developing blood malignancies, benign and malignant tumors of the thyroid gland, and leukemia. This volume discusses the use of irradiation for the treatment of ringwor...
This chapter examines the ringworm eradication program in the Jewish community in Israel during t... more This chapter examines the ringworm eradication program in the Jewish community in Israel during the British Mandate period (1917–1948) and discusses the “war on ringworm” in the first decade after independence in the State of Israel (1948–1960). Evidence is presented that the medical protocol that was developed in Israel to treat ringworm was carried out in accordance with the best method currently used in medical practice in the Western medical community at the time. This fact challenges a widespread public opinion in Israel that irradiation against ringworm of immigrant children in the 1950s was carried out by Israeli authorities irresponsibly and singled out Jewish immigrants arriving in Israel from non-Western countries for such treatment. This erroneous outlook drove legislation in 1994 (the Ringworm Victims Compensation Law), a law that was not enacted anywhere else in the world.
In 1921, the JOINT-JDC [the American Jewish WeLfare Organization) together with the Jewish health... more In 1921, the JOINT-JDC [the American Jewish WeLfare Organization) together with the Jewish health organizations of Eastern Europe (OZE, TOZ) initiated a campaign to eradicate ringworm of the scalp, which was one of the major medical causes that prevented Jews from immigrating to the West. This campaign continued until 1938. During the years 1921-1938, 27,760 children were irradiated (x-rayed) as part of the treatment. This study, based on archival sources in Israel and abroad, presents the story of this unique campaign to eradicate ringworm in the Eastern European Jewish communities, the ideology behind this initiative, the health and medical factors that played a role and its outcomes. This research was conducted at The Gertner Institute for Epidemiology and Health Policy Research and The School of Public Health at Tel Aviv University.
IntroductionHair loss resulting from childhood irradiation for tinea capitis has been linked to m... more IntroductionHair loss resulting from childhood irradiation for tinea capitis has been linked to mental health effects in women. However, the association of hair loss severity with mental health in this population is unknown.ObjectivesThe aim of this study is to examine the association between hair loss severity and mental health outcomes in women irradiated for tinea capitis in childhood and to identify contributing factors to these outcomes.MethodsMedical records, held at the archives of Israel National Center for Compensation of Scalp Ringworm Victims, were retrospectively reviewed for 2509 women who received compensation for full or partial alopecia resulting from irradiation in childhood for tinea capitis. Mental health outcomes were determined by the number of mental health conditions reported.ResultsAmong women with high hair loss levels, risk was increased for a range of mental health problems, including depression symptoms, emotional distress, social anxiety, low self-esteem...
On March 21, 1973, Israel's Council of Higher Education (CHE) was convened by Yigal Alon, the Cou... more On March 21, 1973, Israel's Council of Higher Education (CHE) was convened by Yigal Alon, the Council's chair and the Minister of Education, to vote on whether to approve a proposal to establish a school of medicine in the Negev. In the preliminary discussion, Avraham Harman, the president of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem turned to Professor Moshe Prywes, the president of Ben-Gurion University in the Negev and commented: "Be assured, a school of medicine in Beer Sheva won't pass." At the close of the discussion, the twenty members of the CHE were asked to vote. The vote was a tie - 8 in favor, 8 against and 3 refrained. According to the CHE charter, the chairperson was required to break the tie. The minister - Yigal Alon, raised his hand in favor. Thus, by a bare voice, it was decided to establish a medical school in the Negev. This paper describes the processes that culminated in the approval of a school of medicine by the Council of Higher Education in March 1973. It presents the various personalities, agents, bodies and institutions that played a role in this process and their relative weights in the ultimate decision to establish a school of medicine in the Negev.
... pathologist, pediatrician, dentists, a pharmacist, eye-ear-nose and throat specialists and a ... more ... pathologist, pediatrician, dentists, a pharmacist, eye-ear-nose and throat specialists and a sanitary engineer" (Marlin Levin, Balm in Gilead: The Story of ... 40-41, 49-56, 70-73; J. Lee Kreader, "America's Prophet for Social Security: A Biography of Isaac Max Rubinow" (Ph.D. diss ...
After World War I, ringworm reached epidemic proportions among children in Jewish communities in ... more After World War I, ringworm reached epidemic proportions among children in Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and North Africa, blocking the possibility of immigrating to the West and to Israel. To fight this epidemic, between 1921 and 1938 the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe organized a ringworm eradication campaign by establishing irradiation centers and training nurses and doctors to treat the disease. In the course of the campaign 27,000 children were treated for ringworm with irradiation. In a similar campaign in North Africa between the years 1947 and 1960, some 22,000 Jewish children with ringworm were treated. Because most of the ringworm children from Eastern Europe perished in the Holocaust, discovery of the latent health risks of irradiation in childhood were never known; the remaining remnant immigrated to Israel and the United States. Most of the North African children immigrated to Israel.
In 1950, a full-scale eradication campaign for ringworm (tinea capitis, mycosis) employing ionizi... more In 1950, a full-scale eradication campaign for ringworm (tinea capitis, mycosis) employing ionizing radiation was launched in former Yugoslavia (Serbia today), with UNICEF’s assistance. The number of individuals treated (49,389) was among the highest ever reported in a public health campaign in Europe and North America. Treatment was compulsory, and children were treated in the absence of their parents, with full compliance to the medical authorities, as was common practice under President Tito’s Communist regime. Despite the large numbers of children who were irradiated for ringworm in Yugoslavia, the mass treatment was entirely forgotten. Discovery of documentation of ringworm irradiation in Serbia in 2006 made it possible to publicize the fact, to identify and to locate children who had been treated for ringworm in Serbia who today are aged 65 to 75, and to inform the medical community caring for this population.
In July 1973, a study at the University of Chicago linked radiation treatment in childhood to a v... more In July 1973, a study at the University of Chicago linked radiation treatment in childhood to a variety of diseases, including thyroid cancer. A few months later, a worker at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago found a registry of 5,266 former patients who had been treated with radiation during the 1950s and 1960s. Hospital officials decided to contact these patients and arrange for follow-up medical examinations. Media coverage of the hospital’s campaign prompted more medical institutions to follow suit and, subsequently, a nationwide campaign launched by the National Cancer Institute to warn the medical community and the public about the late effects of ionizing radiation. This chapter discusses how the action of one hospital in Chicago and the media attention it attracted led to a national campaign to warn those who underwent radiation treatment in childhood.
Neighborhoods (1952). The book was a strategic public relations tool, and its royalties provided ... more Neighborhoods (1952). The book was a strategic public relations tool, and its royalties provided crucial funding for the FNS, which, until the advent of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, did not accept government funding. Goan takes us behind the simple story of the FNS to understand the factors that drove Breckinridge to design and fight for this striking health care delivery system. She skillfully analyzes how Breckinridge constructed the mythology around the FNS. Breckinridge was the consummate publicist, creating a persona that attracted the attention she needed, financial and otherwise, to maintain the organization. Goan is best in pointing out the complexities and contradictions evident in Breckinridge’s work, such as the way her class and racial biases played out at the same time as she attempted to improve conditions in Leslie County. Clearly impressed with the founder of the FNS, Goan often points out how other historians have slighted Breckinridge’s intentions. Yet, Goan reaches beyond her sources in striving to explain Breckinridge’s motivations. To give one example, in the 1950s, there was an increasing demand for hospitalized childbirth. Goan claims that despite the community’s needs, Breckinridge resisted expanding her hospital, and that this “reflect[ed] her desire to maintain her organization’s distinctiveness [as a frontier service]” (p. 234). That is possible, but there is nothing to substantiate the author’s claim. Undocumented assertions such as these mar an otherwise interesting biography of a health care visionary.
After World War I, ringworm reached epidemic proportions among children in Jewish communities in ... more After World War I, ringworm reached epidemic proportions among children in Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and North Africa, blocking the possibility of immigrating to the West and to Israel. To fight this epidemic, between 1921 and 1938 the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe organized a ringworm eradication campaign by establishing irradiation centers and training nurses and doctors to treat the disease. In the course of the campaign 27,000 children were treated for ringworm with irradiation. In a similar campaign in North Africa between the years 1947 and 1960, some 22,000 Jewish children with ringworm were treated. Because most of the ringworm children from Eastern Europe perished in the Holocaust, discovery of the latent health risks of irradiation in childhood were never known; the remaining remnant immigrated to Israel and the United States. Most of the North African children immigrated to Israel.
The Israel Medical Association journal : IMAJ, 2001
On 1 January 1995 a new mandatory National Health Insurance Law was enacted in Israel. The new la... more On 1 January 1995 a new mandatory National Health Insurance Law was enacted in Israel. The new law fostered competition among the four major Israeli healthcare providers (HMOs or sick funds) already operating in the market due to the possibility that an unlimited number of patients and the relative budget share would shift among the HMOs. This led them to launch advertising campaigns to attract new members. To examine newspaper advertising activities during the early stages of healthcare market reform in Israel. Advertising efforts were reviewed during a study period of 24 months (July 1994 to June 1996). Advertisements were analyzed in terms of marketing strategy, costs and quality of information. During the study period 412 newspaper advertisements were collected. The total advertising costs by all HMOs was approximately US$4 million in 1996 prices. Differences were found in marketing strategy, relative advertising costs, contents and priorities among the HMOs. The content of HMOs...
The practice of using x-rays for the medical treatment of benign diseases began in the 1920s and ... more The practice of using x-rays for the medical treatment of benign diseases began in the 1920s and peaked in the 1940s and 1950s. Radiation therapy was considered good medical practice during the first decades of the 20th century and was very effective at controlling and eliminating ringworm (tinea capitis), an epidemic that was spread mainly among children. Results were often immediate. In the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and North Africa, hundreds of thousands of children were treated with radiation therapy for ringworm of the scalp. X-ray treatment gradually came to an end in the 1960s when other effective oral treatments were developed (e.g., griseofulvin for ringworm). In parallel, studies started to suggest that radiation exposure, especially in childhood, might increase the risk for developing blood malignancies, benign and malignant tumors of the thyroid gland, and leukemia. This volume discusses the use of irradiation for the treatment of ringwor...
This chapter examines the ringworm eradication program in the Jewish community in Israel during t... more This chapter examines the ringworm eradication program in the Jewish community in Israel during the British Mandate period (1917–1948) and discusses the “war on ringworm” in the first decade after independence in the State of Israel (1948–1960). Evidence is presented that the medical protocol that was developed in Israel to treat ringworm was carried out in accordance with the best method currently used in medical practice in the Western medical community at the time. This fact challenges a widespread public opinion in Israel that irradiation against ringworm of immigrant children in the 1950s was carried out by Israeli authorities irresponsibly and singled out Jewish immigrants arriving in Israel from non-Western countries for such treatment. This erroneous outlook drove legislation in 1994 (the Ringworm Victims Compensation Law), a law that was not enacted anywhere else in the world.
In 1921, the JOINT-JDC [the American Jewish WeLfare Organization) together with the Jewish health... more In 1921, the JOINT-JDC [the American Jewish WeLfare Organization) together with the Jewish health organizations of Eastern Europe (OZE, TOZ) initiated a campaign to eradicate ringworm of the scalp, which was one of the major medical causes that prevented Jews from immigrating to the West. This campaign continued until 1938. During the years 1921-1938, 27,760 children were irradiated (x-rayed) as part of the treatment. This study, based on archival sources in Israel and abroad, presents the story of this unique campaign to eradicate ringworm in the Eastern European Jewish communities, the ideology behind this initiative, the health and medical factors that played a role and its outcomes. This research was conducted at The Gertner Institute for Epidemiology and Health Policy Research and The School of Public Health at Tel Aviv University.
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