The pharmacies of Sesto and the missiles of Iran

Israeli drugs will no longer be sold in municipal pharmacies in Sesto Fiorentino. Institutional and commercial relations have also been interrupted. The mayor, Lorenzo Falchi , says: “A drop in the ocean, but we must do our part”. Meanwhile, professors, researchers and graduates of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot were mourning the massive physical devastation that some of its buildings suffered after ballistic missiles from the Islamic Republic of Iran hit the campus last week. Laboratories, equipment, precious tissue samples, laboratory animals and the work of Israeli and foreign students were destroyed. The Ullmann Building of Life Sciences, where researchers conduct cancer research, was hit the hardest and will likely have to be demolished and rebuilt . One of the minds of the Weizmann, Ruth Arnon, professor of immunology, works on cancer and flu vaccines. Together with Michael Sela, Arnon developed the drug for the treatment of multiple sclerosis Copaxone.

Now, perhaps the people of Sesto Fiorentino were just trying to show off their anti-Zionist solidarity, but they took it out on the country that has the highest number of scientists per capita in the world . One of the most important tumor-suppressing genes, called “p53,” was cloned by scientists at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, named the “best academic workplace in the world” outside the United States by an annual survey conducted by Scientist magazine. A noninvasive diagnostic method for detecting breast and prostate cancer was also developed at Weizmann. That Iranian missiles destroyed it should shame more than one political leader from Sesto who flirts with a boycott.

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