BioSocieties

, Volume 12, Issue 2, pp 282–306 | Cite as

From the pergonal project to Kadimastem: A genealogy of Israel’s reproductive-industrial complex

Original Article
First Online:

Abstract

In the Israeli ‘start-up nation’ biotechnology has emerged as one of the most thriving knowledge-intensive industries. Particularly the med-tech and repro-tech sector are widely regarded as world class in their ability to develop experimental therapies and medicines based on topnotch ‘pioneering’ biomedical research. These developments have rightly been attributed to the neoliberal turn of the late seventies when Israel started to position itself as significant player in the global health and research market. By exploring the (dis)continuities between Pergonal, a fertility drug developed in the late 1950s by the Israeli scientist Bruno Lunenfeld and the Swiss-Italian pharmaceutical company Serono, and the experimental stem cell therapies that are currently being developed by the Israeli biotech company Kadimastem, this article argues, however, that a much older, but still ongoing history of Zionist settler colonial warfare in Palestine/Israel also lies behind the emergence of Israel’s flourishing reproductive-embryonic industry. A Zionist demographic logic that aims to consolidate a Jewish majority in a Jewish state has created fertile conditions for the emergence of a reproductive-industrial complex in which the interests of a pronatalist Jewish state and a biomedical establishment – consisting of academic entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, biotech companies and pharmaceutical giants – have coalesced. The bodies of Israeli women play a pivotal role in this process, not only as reproducers of the settler nation but also as providers of the raw biological materials that are needed to produce experimental research results and to generate surplus bio-value.

Keywords

Palestine/Israel reproductive-industrial complex bio-capitalism zionism settler colonialism demography 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Notes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Hedva Eyal, Sahera Dirbas, Bilal Dirbas, Tamar Novick and Lana Khaskia for helping with the translation of archival and policy documents, and Michal Nahman, Leila Stockmarr, Adam Hanieh, Koen Bogaert, Annemie Vermaelen, Sami Zemni and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback and comments.

References

  1. Almog, O. (2000) The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
  2. Amir, D. and Benjamin, O. (1992) Abortion approval as a ritual of symbolic control. In: C. Feinman (ed.) The criminalization of women’s body. New York: Haworth Press, pp. 5–25.Google Scholar
  3. Balabanova, E. and Simonstein, F. (2010) Assisted reproduction: A comparative review of IVF policies in two pronatalist countries. Health Care Annal 18(2): 188–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Barilan, Y.M. and Siegal, G. (2004) Stem cell research: An Israeli perspective. In: W. Bender, C. Hauskeller and A. Manzei (eds.) Crossing Borders: Cultural, Religious and Political Differences Concerning Stem Cell Research. Münster: Agenda Verlag, pp. 293–324.Google Scholar
  6. Ben-Gurion, D. (1971) Israel, A Personal History. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.Google Scholar
  7. Benner, M. and Löfgren, H. (2007) The bio-economy and the competition state: Transcending the dichotomy between coordinated and liberal market economies. New Political Science 29(1): 77–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Bichler, S. and Nitzan, J. (2002) The Global Political Economy of Israel. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
  9. Birch, K. and Tyfield, D. (2012) Theorizing the bioeconomy, biovalue, biocapital, bioeconomics or … what? Science, Technology and Human Values 38(3): 299–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Birenbaum-Carmeli, D. (2004) Cheaper than a newcomer: On the social production of IVF policy in Israel. Sociology of Health and Illness 26(7): 897–924.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Birenbaum-Carmeli, D. and Carmeli, Y. (eds.) (2010) Kin Gene, Community: Reproductive Technologies Among Jewish Israelis. New York: Berghahn Book.Google Scholar
  12. Borth, R., Lunenfeld, B. and Watteville de, H. (1957) Activite gonadotrope d’un extrait d’urines de femmes en menopause. Experientia 135(3): 115–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Brown, N. and Webster, A. (2004) New Medical Technologies and Society: Reordering Life. Cambridge, UK: Polity Books.Google Scholar
  14. Cooper, M. (2006) Resuscitations: Stem cells and the crisis of old age. Body and Society 12(1): 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. Cooper, M. (2008) Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era. Seattle: Washington University Press.Google Scholar
  16. Davidovitch, N. and Seidelman, R. (2004) Herzl’s Altneuland: Zionist Utopia, medical science and public health. Korot: The Israel Journal of the History of Medicine and Science 17: 1–20.Google Scholar
  17. Dennis, C. (2006) Cloning: Mining the secrets of the egg. Nature 439(7077): 652–655.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Dichek, B. (2011) Baby boomer, http://israel21c.org/people/baby-boomer, accessed , 8 February 2011.
  19. Dickenson, D. (2001) Property and women’s alienation from their own reproductive labour. Bioethics 15(3): 205–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. Dickenson, D. (2007) Property in the Body: Feminist Perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Donath, O. (2014) Choosing motherhood? Agency and regret within reproduction and mothering retrospective accounts. Women’s Studies International Forum. Available online, corrected proof in press.Google Scholar
  22. Efron, N. (2007) Judaism & Science: An Historical Introduction. Westport, CT; London: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
  23. Efron, N. (2011) Judaism and Science. Zygon 46(2): 413–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Eyal, H. (2010) Egg donation in Israel, action research 2009–2010. Isha L’Isha, http://www.isha.org.il/upload/file/EggDonationactionresearchEng2010.pdf, accessed 24 March 2015.
  25. Filc, D. (2005) The health business under neoliberalism: The Israeli case. Critical Social Policy 25(2): 180–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Filc, D. (2009) Circles of Exclusion: The Politics of Health Care in Israel. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
  27. Franklin, S. (2006) Embryonic economies: The double reproductive value of stem cells. BioSocieties 1: 71–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. Franklin, S. and Lock, M. (2003) Remaking Life & Death: Toward an Anthropology of the Biosciences. Sante Fé, NY: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
  29. Golan, T. (2004) Introduction of "Science, Technology and Israeli Society", Special Volume of Israel Studies. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. iv–viii.Google Scholar
  30. Gooldin, S. and Shalev, C. (2006) The Uses and misuses of in vitro fertilization in Israel: Some sociological and ethical considerations. Nashim 12(Fall): 151–176.Google Scholar
  31. Gottweis, H., Waldby, C. and Salter, B. (2009) The Global Politics of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Science: Regenerative Medicine in Transition. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Goven, J. and Pavone, V. (2014) The bioeconomy as a political project: A polanyian analysis. Science, Technology & Human Values: 1–36.Google Scholar
  33. Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  34. Hashash, Y. (2010) Medicine and the state. The medicalization of reproduction in Israel. In: D. Birenbaum-Carmeli and Y.S. Carmeli (eds.) Kin Gene, Community: Reproductive Technologies Among Jewish Israelis. New York: Berghahn Press, pp. 271–295.Google Scholar
  35. Hashiloni-Dolev, Y. (2006) Between mothers, foetuses and society: Reproductive genetics in the Israeli-Jewish context. Nashim 12(Fall): 129–150.Google Scholar
  36. Helmreich, S. (2007) Blue-green capital, biotechnological circulation and an oceanic imaginary: A critique of biopolitical economy. BioSocieties 2(3): 287–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. Herzl, T. (1902) Altneueland. Leipzig. Hermann Seemann Nachfolger.Google Scholar
  38. International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ICMART) (2013) World report: Assisted reproductive technology 2004. Human Reproduction 28(5): 1375–1390.Google Scholar
  39. Jasanoff, S. (2004) States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and the Social Order. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  40. Kadesh, A. (2014) IXiii BioMed conference draws thousands, http://mfa.gov.il/mfa/innovativeisrael/conferences/pages/mixiii-biomed-conference-26-june-2014.aspx#.U6wSQ2pauxA.twitter, accessed, 26 June 2014.
  41. Kahn, S.M. (2000) Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
  42. Kanaaneh, R. (2002) Birthing the Nation: Strategies of Palestinian Women in Israel. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
  43. Livneh, N. (2002) The good father, Haaretz, http://www.haaretz.com/the-good-father-1.43736, accessed 30 May 2002.
  44. Lunenfeld, B. (2013) Management of infertility: Past, present and future from a personal perspective. Journal of Reproductive Medicine and Endocrinology: 10 Special Issue 1 on 50 Years of Gonadotropin Therapy 10(Special Issue 1): 13–22.Google Scholar
  45. Lunenfeld, B., Sulimovici, S. and Rabau, E. (1962) Les effets des gonadotrophins urinaires des femmes menopausees sur l’ovaire humain. C.R. Soc. Franc. Gynecol 32(5): 29.Google Scholar
  46. Mashiach, S., Birenbaum-Carmeli, D., Roy, M. and Marta, D. (2010) The contribution of Israeli researchers to reproductive medicine. In: D. Birenbaum-Carmeli and Y. Carmeli (eds.) Kin Gene, Community: Reproductive Technologies Among Jewish Israelis. New York: Berghahn Book, pp. 51–57.Google Scholar
  47. Messer-Yaron, H. (2011) Technology Transfer in Countries in Transition: Policy and Recommendations, World Intellectual Property Organisation, http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/dcea/en/pdf/Technology_Transfer_in_Countries_in_Transition_FINAL-21.08.2012.pdf.
  48. Nahman, M. (2006) Materializing Israeliness: Difference and mixture in transnational ova donation. Science as Culture 15(3): 199–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  49. Nahman, M. (2008a) Nodes of desire: Romanian egg sellers, dignity and feminist alliances in transnational ova exchanges. European Journal of Women’s Studies 15(2): 65–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  50. Nahman, M. (2008b) Synecdochic ricochets: Biosocialities in a Jerusalem IVF clinic. In: S. Gibbon and C. Novas (eds.) Biosocialities, Genetics and the Social Sciences: Making Biologies and Identities. New York: Routledge, pp. 117–135.Google Scholar
  51. Nahman, M. (2013) Extractions: An Ethnography of Reproductive Tourism. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  52. Novick, T. (2014) Milk & honey: Technologies of plenty in the making of holy land, 1890–1965, unpublished, PhD Dissertation, History and Sociology of Science Department, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
  53. Oliver, A.L. (2004) Biotechnology Entrepreneurial Scientists and their Collaborations. Research Policy 33(4): 583–597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  54. Pavone, V. and Arias, F. (2012) Beyond the geneticization thesis: The political economy of PGD/PGS in Spain. Science, Technology, & Human Values 37(3): 235–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  55. Peck, J. and Tickell, A. (2002) Neoliberalizing Space. In: N. Brenner and N. Theodore (eds.) Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe. Malden, MA: Oxford’s Blackwell Press, pp. 33–57.Google Scholar
  56. Portuguese, J. (1998) Fertility Policy in Israel: The Politics of Religion, Gender and Nation. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
  57. Prainsack, B. (2006) Negotiating life: The regulation of human cloning and embryonic stem cell research in Israel. Social Studies of Science 36(2): 173–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  58. Prainsack, B. and Firestine, O. (2006) Biotechnology in Israel: Science for survival: Biotechnology regulation in Israel. Science and Public Policy 33(1): 33–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  59. Prainsack, B. and Wahlberg, A. (2013) Situated bio-regulation: Ethnographic sensibility at the interface of STS, policy studies and the social studies of medicine. BioSocieties 8(3): 336–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  60. Rajan, S. (2006) Biocapital: The Constitution of Postgenomic Life. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  61. Remennick, L. (2006) The quest for the perfect baby: Why do Israeli women seek prenatal genetic testing. Sociology of Health and Illness 28(1): 21–53.Google Scholar
  62. Rose, N. (2007) The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  63. Rosenberg, D. (2015) The Truth About Startup Nation: Pretty but Precarious. Haaretz, 29/01/2015, http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/david-s-harp/.premium-1.639703, accessed 31 March 2015.
  64. Senor, D. and Singer, S. (2011) Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. New York: Twelve.Google Scholar
  65. Shalev, C. (2010) From woe to woe: Egg donation in Israel. International Women’s and Gender Studies in Lower Saxony 6: 71–90.Google Scholar
  66. Shalev, C. and Werner-Felmayer, G. (2012) Patterns of globalized reproduction: Egg cells regulation in Israel and Austria. Israel Journal of Health Policy Research 1(15): 1–35.Google Scholar
  67. Shohat, E. (1988) Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the standpoint of its Jewish victims. Social Text, No. 19/20(Autumn): 1–35.Google Scholar
  68. Shvarts, S. (2008) Health and Zionism: The Israeli Health System 1948–1960. Rochester, NJ: University of Rochester Press, p. 322.Google Scholar
  69. Spar, D. (2006) The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
  70. Stockmarr, L. (2014) Seeing is striking: Selling Israeli warfare, Jadaliyya, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/16044/seeing-is-striking_selling-israeli-warfare, accessed 18 January 2014.
  71. Sufian, S. (2007) Healing the Land and the Nation, Malaria and the Zionist Project in Palestine, 1920–1947. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  72. UK Stem Cell Initiative (UKSCI) (2006) Global positions in stem cell research: Israel, http://www.dh.gov.uk/ab/UKSCI/DH_096199, accessed 19 June 2014.
  73. Veracini, L. (2006) Israel and Settler Society. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
  74. Vertommen, S. (2015a) “Political Economy of Egg Donations: Doing it The Israel Way”, edited volume on ‘Critical Kinship Studies: Kinship (Trans)formed’, Charlotte Krolokke, Routledge (forthcoming).Google Scholar
  75. Vertommen, S. (2015b) ”Baby’s from behind the bars. Stratified assisted reproduction in Israel/Palestine”. edited volume on “Assisted reproduction in a European and globalized perspective – Notes on the overall frameworks”. in: Merete Lie and Nina Lykke (eds.) Routledge (forthcoming).Google Scholar
  76. Vogel, G. (2002) In the mideast, pushing back the stem cell frontier. Science 295(5561): 1818–1820.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  77. Waldby, C. (2002) Stem cells, tissue cultures and the production of biovalue. Health 6(3): 305–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  78. Waldby, C. (2008) Oocyte markets: Women’s reproductive work in embryonic stem cell research. New Genetics and Society 27(1): 19–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  79. Waldby, C. and Cooper, M. (2006) The Biopolitics of Reproduction: Post-Fordist biotechnology and women’s clinical labour. Global Biopolitics Working Group. Working Paper 15, http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/politicaleconomy/research/biopolitics/publications/workingpapers/wp15.pdf.
  80. Waldby, C. and Cooper, M. (2014) Clinical Labor: Tissue Donors and Research Subjects in the Global Bioeconomy. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
  81. Waldby, C. and Mitchell, R. (2006) Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs and Cell Lines in Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  82. Wallerstein, I. (2003) Historical Capitalism and Capitalist Civilization. London: Verso.Google Scholar
  83. Weinstock (1965) Pergonal, the magical drug. Maariv, 01/02/1965.Google Scholar
  84. Weiss, M. (2002) The Chosen Body: The Politics of the Body in Israeli Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
  85. Wolfe, P. (1999) Settler Colonialism and The Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of An Ethnographic Event. London: Cassel.Google Scholar
  86. Wolfe, P. (2006) Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research 8(4): 387–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  87. Wolfe, P. (2007) Palestine, project Europe and the (un-)making of the new Jew. In memory of Edward Said. In: N. Curthoys and D. Ganguly (eds.) Edward Said: The Legacy of a Public Intellectual. Carlton, Australia: Melbourne University Press, pp. 313–337.Google Scholar
  89. Yuval-Davis, N. (1998) Gender and Nation. London: Sage.Google Scholar
  90. Yuval-Davis, N. and Stasiulis, D. (1995) Unsettling Settler Societies: Articulations of Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class. London: Sage Publication.Google Scholar
  91. Zeller, C. (2008) From the gene to the globe: Extracting rents based on intellectual property monopolies. Review of International Political Economy 15(1): 86–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Further Reading

  1. Directive 2004/23/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31/03/2004 on setting standards of quality and safety for the donation, procurement, testing, processing, preservation, storage and distribution of human tissues and cells, http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2004/l_102/l_10220040407en00480058.pdf, accessed 7 February 2014.
  2. ESHRE (2010) Assisted reproductive technology in Europe, 2010: Results generated from European registers by ESHRE. Human Reproduction 29(10): 2099–2113.Google Scholar
  3. Human Fertilisation and Embryology Agency (2010) Fertility Treatment in 2010: Trends and Figures. London, http://www.hfea.gov.uk/docs/2011-11-16_-_Annual_Register_Figures_Report_final.pdf, accessed 1 March 2015.
  5. http://www.bertarelli.com/family/serono/, accessed 24 February 2015.
  6. Office of Chief Scientist (2014) Catalogue of R&D Incentive Programs, www.economy.gov.il/madan, accessed 8 July 2014.
  7. OECD (2008) Science, Technology and Industry Outlook 2008: Highlights. Paris, http://www.oecd.org/science/inno/41551978.pdf, accessed 17 February 2015.
  8. OECD (2011) Science and Technology: Research and Development, Information and Communication. Paris, http://www.oecd.org/std/08_Science_and_technology.pdf, accessed 24 December 2012.
  9. www.kadimastem.com, accessed 7 June 2014.
  10. The Israel tech transfer organization, http://www.ittn.org.il, accessed15 June 2014.
  11. Yissum Technology Transfer, http://www.yissum.co.il/, accessed 8 June 2014.
  12. Israel Advanced Technology Industry (2012) Israel Life Science Industry towards a breakthrough decade: In Partnership with IATI-2012 Summary Report. Tel Aviv, http://www.iati.co.il/files/files/Israel%20Life%20Science%20Industry%20-%20towards%20a%20breakthrough%20decade-%20IATI%202012%20Summary%20Report.pdf, accessed 10 January 2015.
  13. Israel Ministry of Health (2013) Department of Health Information, Medical Facilities and Equipment Licensing Division 2013. IVF treatment in 2013, http://www.health.gov.il/English/News_and_Events/Spokespersons_Messages/Pages/14072015_1.aspx, accessed 10 January 2015.
  14. Israel Advanced Technology Industries. (2014) Israel Innovation Conference; 20–22 May. MIXiii Hi-Tech Biomed. Tel Aviv: Catalogue.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent UniversityGentBelgium

Personalised recommendations