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Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Health Policy, Healthcare Reform, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: What’s New in Healthcare Policy in Washington D.C.

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From my America Out Loud podcast with Grace-Marie Turner  – https://www.americaoutloud.news/grace-marie-turner-new-in-healthcare-policy-in-washington-dc/

A few years ago, Jimmy McMillan ran for mayor of New York with the slogan “the rent is too damn high.” We have been saying the same thing about the cost of medical care for years. Presidents change, the Congressional majorities change, but nothing truly useful gets done. Oh, you say, we had the Affordable Care Act. Some more people got a path to have health insurance policy in their file cabinet but their out-of-pocket costs remained high and the national total expenditures continued to rise.

Yes, the system is expensive and it is way too complicated. There are so many permutations and combinations of deductibles, benefits, co-pays that the average Joe or Jane would not know which insurance policy to choose. Fortunately, for many people, their employer is the person who has to deal with selecting a policy. Unfortunately, having health care tied to employment leaves you one layoff away from your doctor.

Additionally, insurers’ attempts to save money may cost the system more. They deny a more expensive medicine for a cheaper one that does not work as well and the patient stays ill longer, thus costing the system more in the long run.

And what ever happened to an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and simple things are simple? Insurers routinely do not include many preventive strategies, over-the-counter remedies and home care. Washington’s policies do not encourage us to pay directly for basic care. Paying directly allows us to get what we need, when we need it, and from whom we choose to get goods and services.

But is more federal government ruminating and intervention the answer? Doubtful. Improving the system will take looking at not only the theoretical but the practical by talking with health care professionals and patients who are doing the work and paying the bills.

My guest and I will discuss what’s going on in Washington DC. on the health care front.

Link to Galen Institute website: https://galen.org

Link to Galen Institute “Healthcare Choices 2020” solutions: https://galen.org/2020/health-care-choices-2020/

Link to Republican Study Committee “Framework for Personalized Affordable Healthcare”: https://rsc-hern.house.gov/framework-for-personalized-affordable-care?mc_cid=275db3c5ca&mc_eid=da57c10447

Bio

Grace-Marie Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a non-profit research organization focusing on achieving affordable health coverage and care for all Americans, especially the most vulnerable. She is founder of the Health Policy Consensus Group that is a place for analysts from market-oriented think tanks around the country to get together and develop policy recommendations. Ms. Turner has also have served as a member of the Advisory Board of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, as an appointee to the Medicaid Commission, and as a congressional appointee to the Long Term Care Commission.

Culture & Society, Current Events, Law, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: The Critical Race Theory Scam with Christopher Arend, JD

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Christopher Arend, JD – https://www.americaoutloud.news/the-critical-race-theory-scam/

We’re talking about indoctrination tonight.

I’m giving up my opening statement to some folks who’ve said it better than I can.

“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

“Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

Josef Stalin

“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”

Adolf Hitler

“It isn’t a coincidence that governments everywhere want to educate children. Government education, in turn, is supposed to be evidence of the state’s goodness and its concern for our well-being. The real explanation is less flattering. If the government’s propaganda can take root as children grow up, those kids will be no threat to the state apparatus. They’ll fasten the chains to their own ankles.” – Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr (founder and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute)

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult.

To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

“There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well.”

Booker T. Washington, My Larger Education (1911).

“Oh, I say it again, you been misled. You been had. Bamboozled. Led astray. You been took.”

Malcolm X

Bio

Christopher Arend is a California attorney who has taken up the fight against racist indoctrination in our schools. He was educated in California, including in the heart of the free speech movement at U.C. Berkeley undergraduate with a degree in Political Science and U.C. Berkeley Law School. While in the U.S. Army, Mr. Arend worked as a German translator. He spent most of his legal career practicing law in Germany before returning to California. He spent four years on the Paso Robles School Board working to formulate an even-handed ethnic studies program. He recently authored The Critical Race Theory Scam – Dissecting a Racist Ideology.

Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Law, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: How Illegal Immigration Impacts You with Andy Schlafly, JD

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast How Illegal Immigration Impacts You with Andy Schlafly, JD – https://www.americaoutloud.news/andy-schlafly-jd-illegal-immigration-and-how-it-impacts-you/

Over the last 12 months, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol – as they call it – encountered some 3 million people illegally crossing the southern border. The United States is a large and generous country but the immigration issue has many ramifications.

The psychological and actual damage to black and brown legal resident is incalculable. American citizens are living on the streets while illegal immigrants are being housed.

Since President Biden took office, 425,000 unaccompanied alien children crossed the border. We are paying millions to babysit them in our schools. Teachers are at their wits’ end as they try to teach an onslaught of students who can’t speak a word of English. Don’t despair, Gavin Newsom signed a bill (Assembly Bill 714) to each teachers how to teach illegal aliens. What about our already failing American students. Black students are performing horribly. I guess blacks have outlived their usefulness – their vote is in the bag.  Illegal aliens are the new oppressed person of interest.

And what about the criminals? New criminals crossing and previously incarcerated illegal aliens (407,983 convicted criminal aliens) are not always deported. Is this what we need with crime rising throughout the country?

My guest today is Andy Schlafly. He wrote an article in Townhall highlighting some effects on illegal immigration on employment, among other things. We’ll talk about this, medical censorship, and anything else that crosses our minds.

Bio

Andy Schlafly is general counsel to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. He received a B.S.E. in electrical engineering and certificate in engineering physics from Princeton University. After graduating from Princeton, Mr. Schlafly briefly worked as a device physicist for Intel, then became a microelectronics engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He then attended Harvard Law School along with Barack Obama. For two years Mr. Schlafly was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, Schlafly served as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall Law School and worked for a large law firm before beginning private practice. Mr. Schlafly created the wiki-based Conservapedia in November 2006 to counter the apparent liberal bias in Wikipedia.

Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud Pulse: Woke Antisemitism and the Response to Hamas Attack

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast: Woke Antisemitism and the Response to Hamas Attack with David L. Bernstein – https://www.americaoutloud.news/woke-antisemitism-and-response-to-hamas-attack/

Over the years, racist and other hate mongers faded from sight. Some saw the error of their ways, while others hid in the closet.  The recent rise in antisemitism in America is the canary in the coal mine for the growing acceptance of overt contempt for people who are not like you. They say courage is contagious – but so is contempt.

The war in Israel and the loss of many lives, including Americans, brings the end result of unbridled hatred to our front doors. The Chicago Black Lives Matter organization posted a since-deleted graphic seemingly celebrating Hamas’ slaughter of Israelis. Stanford, Columbia, and Harvard (among others) students cheered and clapped for Hamas and displayed signs of support from their dormitory windows.  Note, they were cheering for Hamas, a terrorist organization – not the residents of Gaza. (The U.S. State Department has designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997. The European Union and other Western countries also consider it a terrorist organization.) It is the everyday residents who will suffer for the decision of their leadership to perform act inhumane barbarism against civilians in the name of seeking autonomy. Sadly, according to Hamas’ Charter, autonomy can only come by wiping Israel off the face of the Earth.

This divisive mindset is being fostered in all aspects of American life – all under the banner of equity. California’s Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law the Ebony alert – an Amber alert just for black women and children.  This is supposed to get more media attention but it just serves to divide us into separate groups.  But that’s the plan. Ever heard of divide and conquer?? It is an age-old tool of tyrants. We cannot let the dangerous path of modern day wokeism that fosters group biases continue to its logical end: a country perhaps irreparably divided.

Today (October 13th)  is the worldwide day of jihad – let’s hope that violence does not come to fruition. My guest has discussed on this show how the current “woke” movement is a breeding ground to antisemitism. We will discuss this in light of the current Middle East conflict.

Bio

David L. Bernstein is the founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV). The Institute supports viewpoint diversity, counters woke ideology in the Jewish community, and opposes novel forms of antisemitism emerging from woke ideology. He served as president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a national umbrella for local Jewish advocacy. His recent book is Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews.

Culture & Society, Featured, Law, Medical Ethics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: Forensic Psychiatry – Guilty or Insane?

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Dr. Renée S. Kohanski – https://www.americaoutloud.news/renee-s-kohanski-md-forensic-psychiatry/

Today we are going to seriously talk about psychiatric issues in crime. First, let me do some venting.

I think it’s a crime that people are punished for so-called microaggressions while bad guys committing macroaggressions, like burglarizing stores and assaulting people, face no consequences. In 2014, the foolish California electorate passed Proposition 47 that was supposed to reduce prison overcrowding by making it so a person can steal up to $950 and only be charged with a misdemeanor. There is no jail time and no requirement for bail. The criminals are free to commit more crimes. The theft flash mobs are spreading across the country in high-end neighborhoods. Moral codes have flown out the window—not only for the perpetrators but for some of these Soros-funded district attorneys.

I remember during the 1992 presidential election when Bill Clinton returned to Arkansas to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector. Mr. Rector indeed murdered someone but was so mentally disabled at the time of the execution due to a suicide attempt by a gunshot wound to the head. This execution was particularly memorable: when the guards asked him whether he was finished with his meal, he said he would save the pecan pie “for later”. Ten years later, the Supreme Court ruled that putting mentally retarded people to death was “cruel and unusual”, and therefore unconstitutional.

Some criminologists question whether all murderers are mentally ill. After all, taking a human life is a grossly abnormal thing to do. (I’m not talking about protecting oneself or others or sadly, war). Many of us might have imagined killing someone in anger but would never actually do it. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) estimated that over 50 percent of inmates suffer from a significant mental condition. And that number is 80 percent for death row inmates. Some psychologists say it is not the mental illness, but the attendant substance abuse, living in high crime neighborhoods, low income, and similar social factors.

I’m not a fan of the death penalty. Physicians are not supposed to kill people. Moreover, too many people have been exonerated after many years of incarceration. If the wrong man was executed, death is irreversible. And the death penalty costs too much money. Up to 10 times more money (our tax dollars) is spent on death penalty cases than to house someone for life without parole. According to BJS, as of 2019 the average stay on death row is 19 years. In California, more death row inmates have died from natural causes or suicide than from executions since 1978.

If we want maximum accountability, there’s always Pelican Bay and the like. At Pelican Bay, half the inmates are in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) and are confined to their assigned cells for up to 22 hours a day. Correctional officers deliver food through a slot in the cell door. That sounds pretty grim to me.

My guest and I will discuss crime, punishment, and mental health.

Bio

Dr. Renée S. Kohanski, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist with fellowship training in forensic psychiatry. She completed her residency at Georgetown University where she served as Chief Resident and her fellowship at the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Kohanski has enjoyed a broad-based practice in academic, community, and forensic psychiatry. She has been a board examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical College of Georgia and the University of Connecticut schools of medicine. She has also served on the Editorial Advisory Board of MDEdge Psychiatry. Dr. Kohanski currently serves on the Board of Directors for the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons.

Culture & Society, Featured, What's New

America Out Loud Pulse: Hope Amidst Healthcare Mental Health Struggles

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Joel Strom, DDS – Hope Amidst Healthcare Mental Health Struggles – https://www.americaoutloud.news/hope-amidst-healthcare-mental-health-struggles/

According to a recent survey of 13,000 physicians, about one fifth of doctors reported feeling depressed. And one fourth of the depressed doctors were suffering from clinical or severe depression that was not due to a so-called normal grief event. Worse yet, 7 percent of the doctors surveyed said they had considered suicide. This is almost double that of the general population (4 percent). Sadly, those surveyed said they kept their feelings to themselves fearing for negative impact on their career. And just like so many other negative emotions in medicine and society in general, Covid made them worse. The overwork during the pandemic left its mark on health care professionals.

Additionally, workplace violence in healthcare settings is higher than any other profession.  Three quarters of non-fatal workplace violence injuries involved workers in health care and social work in 2020. One recent survey reported that 40 percent of health care workers had experienced on-the-job violence.

The increasing intrusion of corporate entities into medicine whether large health systems or private equity firms buying medical practices. Not only is there loss of control of the manner in which they practice, but many have lost their jobs to be replaced by lower cost employees. Many physicians have become cogs in the corporate machine, reduced to spending no more than 15 minutes with a patient, where the quick answer is a prescription. This represents a work situation that is contrary to the Oath of Hippocrates. Physicians who have spoken out against the short shrift given to patients have been fired.

Patient privacy is becoming a thing of the past as more data is shared with outside third parties. Insurers are using artificial intelligence (AI) programs to deny valid claims.

Heraclitus also wrote, “out of strife comes harmony.” In spite of all the negatives swirling around us, I believe life is good and compassionate, great medicine will prevail.

My guest and I will discuss his personal journey from total control over his years-long successful career to having it gone in one moment.

Bio

Dr. Joel Strom has practiced general dentistry for more than 40 years and is a former President of the California State Dental Board. He has extensive leadership experience in all aspects of the dental profession including education, regulation, professional leadership, clinical practice and as an expert witness.  He is an Adjunct Professor at the Forsyth Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, former Chairman of Ethics in the Practice of Dentistry at USC, And Dr. Strom had a 12-year tenure on the California Science Center Board of Directors. Dr. Strom founded the Dr. Joseph Warren Institute, a 501c4 non-profit designed to educate and motivate health care professionals to become leaders in the political and public policy debate on health care reform.

Culture & Society, Featured, Health Policy, Medical Ethics, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: Mental Health and Gender Care

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Lauren Schwartz, MD –https://www.americaoutloud.news/mental-health-and-gender-care-with-dr-lauren-schwartz/

Words mean everything. There is a growing movement in certain medical circles to change the name of obesity to make it more patient friendly. Adiposity-Based Chronic Disease (ABCD) was proposed in 2016 but hasn’t seemed to have caught on. Abortion services became reproductive health. That one stuck.

Sex-change surgery is now called gender affirming care. Sex-change sounded a bit clownish since most people knew you really could not change your sex. Except for some rare conditions, a person is born with a set of XX (female) or XY (male) chromosomes. Gender affirming care sounds so compassionate, so medically reasonable to physically change a person to comport with the gender by which he or she wants to, as they say, “identify as.” But it is some sort of delusion that injecting children with drugs will magically turn them into the opposite sex. The wordsmithing seems to have no limits. One child psychologist at a major medical center has suggested that children can identify as “gender hybrids.” The Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services agrees with eliminating the word “mother” in exchange for “egg carrier” or “gestational parent,” or birthing parent.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers advice on “chest feeding.”

Changing words is reminiscent of George Orwell’s “Newspeak,” used in his oft-cited novel, 1984.The point of Newspeak was to control the language and discourage individual thought and critical thinking. Unfortunately, the medical establishment has demonstrated that it is not immune from making medical decisions based on the winds of politics. It seems this frightening trend to put ideology over science will result in permanent scarring of some of our most precious and vulnerable human beings.

There is hope. More and more states and sports groups are recognizing the unfairness and safety concerns of permitting biological men to compete in women’s sports. Nineteen states have laws protecting youth from medical procedures that would likely permanently and do irreparable harm to their bodies. Mind you, we are talking about minors, not adults who are presumably mature and capable of thinking through a serious decision.

My guest will explore these issues and much more. She, like so many other good doctors, believes instead of injecting politics we should exercise our duty as physicians to treat every patient with developmentally appropriate, comprehensive care, dignity, respect, empathy and compassion through excellence in medicine and mental health.

Bio

Dr. Lauren Schwartz is a psychiatrist certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She graduated from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine with distinction and completed her residency in psychiatry at the University of Oklahoma’s Health Sciences Center with additional training in psychoanalytic theory through Oklahoma’s psychoanalytic society. She is currently in private practice in Oklahoma, applying a psychodynamic approach to both psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. Most recently she has collaborated with Dr. Miriam Grossman and authored 2 appendices for Dr. Grossman’s book, “Lost in Trans Nation, A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness.”

Culture & Society, Featured, Medicine, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: Sleep Heals: Brain-washing Is a Good Thing

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Dr. Barry Krakow –https://www.americaoutloud.news/sleep-heals-brainwashing-is-a-good-thing/

These days everything seems so contentious. War, political verbal sniping, no-fault theft, and the incessant natter on multiple 24-hour news stations is unavoidable. The networks feed us a steady diet of bad news for the sake of keeping us glued to their stations. Our cell phones, once a miracle, have become a curse as people expect you to be available 24/7. Consequently, many people are chronically on edge and without knowing why. After the Covid lockdowns people have remained isolated and lonely.

The one thing that we can count on to put it all behind us is a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately, a good night’s sleep is elusive for some. Even our legislators have been caught napping on the job. Are impeachment trials and senate hearings that boring? Or are our representatives grossly sleep-deprived from pondering national issues?

Sleep quality and duration have dropped significantly in the past 50 years. At least one-third of people, and in some studies 50 to 60 percent, experience insomnia. Some folks with work-related reasons, like shift workers or physicians on call are common causes of sleep problems. Some sleep scientists postulate cultural reasons for sleep loss, including stress, people over-extending themselves, using social media at night, and exposure to blue light from screens. And poor sleep quality leads to changes in cognitive function and decreased motor skills. One 13 year study from the National Health Interview Survey of U.S. adults aged 18 to 84 found that low-quality sleep is associated with obesity, heart disease, diabetes and early death.

And on the lighter side, according to the Cleveland Clinic:

  • Some car rental contracts make you promise not to drive on fewer than six hours of sleep.
  • Today, 75% of us dream in color. Before color television, just 15% of us did.
  • Whales and dolphins literally fall half asleep. Each side of their brain takes turns so they can come up for air.
  • Sea otters hold hands when they sleep so they don’t drift away from each other.

My guest today will discuss all things sleep – so please —- stay awake!

 Websites to explore:

Bio

Dr. Barry Krakow, MD is a board certified internist and sleep medicine specialist who has worked in the field of sleep research and clinical sleep medicine for more than 30 years, pioneering innovative techniques for the treatment of chronic nightmares, chronic insomnia, complex insomnia, upper airway resistance syndrome, obstructive and central sleep apnea and restless legs syndrome and periodic limb movement disorder. He is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health in the Department of Psychiatry at Mercer University School of Medicine in Georgia. Currently, he trains psychiatry residents in sleep disorders medicine and supervises their sleep medicine clinic. His most recent book is entitled Life Saving Sleep.

 

Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Health Policy, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: Can 5G Make You Sick?

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Dr. Patricia Powers, MD, Col., US Army (retired) – https://www.americaoutloud.news/dr-patricia-powers-col-us-army-can-5g-make-you-sick/

We are living in a world where a new technological device pops up every day. Many of these devices, such as cordless phones, cell phones and wireless internet routers use radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields (Electromagnetic radiation (EMR) or electromagnetic fields (EMFs). And then there’s smart meters many utilities companies have installed to monitor your gas and electric use remotely.

Although radio communications and human exposure to radio frequency energy have been around for 100 years, these energy fields seem to be inescapable these days. There is almost no business establishment, school, or library that doesn’t have wireless technology.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared 5G safe but note that more research is needed. Many physicians and scientists such as the BioInitiative Working Group, have concerns about its safety. Experts disagree about the interpretation of the studies, what standards to use, what level of proof is needed, short-term vs long-term effects, performing separate studies on the very young, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with illnesses vs the average person, and importantly excluding people with conflicts of interest in the outcome of the research.

Given the uncertainty of the effects of electromagnetic radiation, it is disturbing that the federal government in its effort to expand broadband to the whole country, (the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2023(HR 3557)) could eliminate state and local control in cell tower and cell placements – including schools and playgrounds.

My guest will discuss health problems and practical ways to reduce exposures to electromagnetic radiation.

 To find Dr. Patricia Powers:  drpattypowers.com

Virginia Medical Freedom Alliance – https://vamfa.org/

Virginians for Safe Technology – https://virginiansforsafetech.org/say-no/

Environmental Health Trust  –  https://ehtrust.org/

Electrosensitive Society  –  https://www.electrosensitivesociety.com/

Dr. Magda Havas PhD  –  https://magdahavas.com/

The Invisible Rainbow by Arthur Firstenberg 2020

EMF*D by Joe Mercola

EMF-Portal  –  https://www.emf-portal.org/en

Tech Wellness  –  https://techwellness.com/

Defender Shield  –  https://defendershield.com/

EMF Practical Guide by Lloyd Burrell 2019  –  https://ehtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/5G_What-You-Need-to-Know.pdf

Bio

Dr. Patricia Powers was an active duty Army doctor (pediatrician and then pediatric endocrinologist) for 25 years and retired at the rank of COL in 2004. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. Dr. Powers received her MD from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, in Bethesda, MD and had her residency in pediatrics at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. She has trained in anti-aging and functional medicine and is a member of the International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness and the National Association of Environmental Medicine.

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