Ever since its establishment in 1948, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has exhibited characteristics conventionally associated with a "people's army." The composition of its force structure (mainly based on compulsory conscription and reserve duty) has both reflected and reinforced that image. During the past decade, however, the relative weights of the IDF's manpower complement have begun to change. While reserve duty is being reduced and conscription is becoming more selective, the career and professional component is being augmented. This article examines the societal, economic, and operational reasons for those changes. It then goes on to discuss their possible effects on the fabric of relations between Israeli society and the IDF. Specifically noted are the implications for (a) military service as a rite of passage towards full citizenship; (b) the IDF's posture of "military role expansion"; and (c) civil-military relations in Israel.
The Palivizumab Outcomes Registry prospectively collected data on 19,548 subjects who received respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) prophylaxis with palivizumab during the 2000-2004 RSV seasons. We evaluated the characteristics of enrolled registry subjects with congenital heart disease (CHD) over the four RSV seasons and examined additional information on these subjects collected in the 2002-2004 seasons. The percentage of registry subjects with CHD increased from 4.8% (102/2116) in the first season to 11.4% (688/6050) in the last season. Across all four seasons, 1500 subjects with CHD were enrolled, 71% of whom had acyanotic CHD. The proportion with cyanotic CHD increased from 19.6% (20/102) in the 2000-2001 season to 37.5% (258/688) in the 2003-2004 season, while the proportion of all CHD in the registry more than doubled during this time. The cumulative RSV hospitalization rate was 1.9% among patients with CHD who received prophylaxis. Among subjects with cyanotic and acyanotic CHD, hospitalization rates were 2.6% and 1.6%, respectively. Prospective data collected in the Palivizumab Outcomes Registry provide the largest published dataset available on infants with CHD receiving palivizumab and show low hospitalization rates and use consistent with prelicensure clinical trial data and revised American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines.
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