ABOUT THE COMPULSION OF SCIENTISTS TO PERPETUATE ERROR
How can one explain that for well over a century-and-a-half a great many eminent citizens, including reputable scientists and physicians, physiologists and medical
researchers have irrefutably demonstrated the uselessness of animal experimentation as a means of acquiring medical knowledge, and the damage ensuing to human health from this misconception,
and yet the majority of "people who count" in politics, public health, education, media, even in animal welfare, and consequently also public opinion, which is influenced by all these
institutions, continue to cling to the belief that animal experiments can't be renounced. There is a variety of reasons for this phenomenon, which shall be examined from various viewpoints.
The Historical Aspect
History knows many cases where there was a difference between veritable or normal science (systematic knowledge, logically-interconnected facts, establishment of verifiable
laws), and spurious science, believed to be true because it was endorsed by the powers-that-be, including the Church and the scientists of the time, and that we shall define as "official"
science. Official science usually precedes normal science, sometimes by centuries.
For example: In the Second Century A.D. the Greco-Roman astronomer, geographer and mathematician, Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy), had developed a theory about the universe
that according to the knowledge of his epoch was considered masterly and irrefutable, conditioning the way of thinking of all Europe up to the Middle Ages, although it was wrong. It was wrong
because it was based on Aristotle's misconception that the Earth remains immobile, and is the center of the universe. Starting out from this false premise, Ptolemaeus had managed to present a
brilliant explanation for the astral movements in the sky, that even enabled the sailors to navigate. His theory had the blessings of the Church because thanks to it she could present herself
as the spiritual head and religious center of the universe, and not just of an infinitesimal fraction of it, such as the Earth; so when, in the 16th century, another astronomer and physicist,
Galileo Galilei, came to upset the accepted theory, true science collided with official science in a resounding clash, which Galilei could only lose, at first. He was arrested, his life was
threatened, some have it that he was even tortured, at any rate he was forced to recant.
People who believe that today such a thing could happen only in Soviet Russia are grievously mistaken; it happens in our so-called free democracies, as we shall see, all the
time, in various fields, even if the punishment for dissidence is not the death penalty, but economic or other sanctions, which may equally threaten a dissident's existence.
Galilei's theory was opposed not only by the Church, but also by his peers, the "natural philosophers" as the scientists were then called. Like many of today's scientists,
being revered and admired as a sort of demigods, by the low as well as the mighty, they would rather have died than admit they had been wrong all along and propagated a mistake. Exactly this
happens with many of them today in the realm of animal experimentation. Human nature doesn't change. That is why new notions are accepted only with extreme slowness and reluctance, as one must
usually wait not only for all the teachers to die, but also for their pupils to die.
Another case in point was Andreas Vesalius, a Belgian who taught anatomy in Padua, Italy. It was around the same time as Galilei that Vesalius, by dissecting cadavers of the
hanged (a practice that had been strictly forbidden until then, ever since antiquity), revealed that many of Galen's descriptions of the human anatomy were wrong, because Galen had based them
on the dissection of animals. Again science clashed with official science when Vesalius revealed the truth - he was accused of "heresy and folly", and had to flee, fearing for his life. For
example, Galen had described the human hipbone as being flared, like that of the ox, and when Vesalius corrected him, his peers, the university teachers, unwilling to admit that they had
perpetuated a millenarian error, explained that since the days of Galen the human hipbone must have changed due to the habit of wearing pants instead of the toga! Although the truth was evident
for all to see, the Galenic errors survived for another 200 years in the seats of learning, proving once more that there is no ignorance so stubborn as the ignorance of the learned.
This is just one reason why it is so difficult to get the men in charge of education and the health system to admit that using animals as a parameter for learning something
about human biology may well be another of the great blunders of official science.
The Medical Aspect
Few words need be wasted on this. An anthology of names and opinions of physicians and researchers who, explicitly or indirectly, have denied any scientific or medical validity to vivisection
make up the largest part of this book - 1000 DOCTORS (and many more) AGAINST VIVISECTION; so the question can be defined, at least, as controversial. But if one considers that all those who
assign validity to the "animal model" system are people who derive a morbid satisfaction or a monetary gain from it, the question appears no longer controversial but understandable. Consider
only these two examples.
Everything that Dr.Robert Lawson Tait (1845-1899), the giant of modern surgery, said and wrote about vivisection, which he had practiced in the early years of his medical
studies, was a merciless endictment against it, for he considered it damaging not only to medical practice in general but also to the medical mind. He said:
"The position of vivisection as a method of research stands alone amongst the infinite variety of roads for the discovery of Nature's secrets as being open to strong prima
facie objection. No one can urge the slightest ground for objection against the astronomer,the chemist, the electrician or the geologist in their ways of working; and the great commendation of
all other workers is the comparative certainty of their results. But, for the physiologist, working upon a living animal, there are two strong objections: that he is violating a strong and
widespread public sentiment, and that he tabulates results of the most uncertain and often contradictory kind."
And in 1988, the [late] Prof. Robert S.Mendelsohn, M.D., of Chicago University, in his last syndicated Medical Newsletter, The People's Doctor, No.4, vol.12, wrote:
"Despite the tendency of doctors to call modern medicine an 'inexact science', it is more accurate to say there is practically no science in modern medicine at all. Almost
everything doctors do is based on a conjecture, a guess, a clinical impression, a whim, a hope, a wish, an opinion or a belief. In short, everything they do is based on anything but solid
scientific evidence. Thus, today's Medicine is not a science at all, but a belief system. Beliefs are held by every religion, including the Religion of Modern Medicine."
And the noxious effects of modern medicine, which Prof. Mendelsohn kept denouncing to mass audiences in books, articles, newsletters, conferences and on TV, are mostly
attributable to the false methodology of animal research.
The Intimidatory Aspect
The uninformed critic might well ask how the deception of the usefulness of vivisection could be kept alive within the medical community itself,
considering that there have always been prominent dissenters among them.
Walter Hadwen, one of the most eminent British MDs in the first half of the 20th century, explains this phenomenon in the preface of a book he wrote about
one of those dissenting MDs, titled "The Difficulties of Dr. Deguerre." The conditions that Dr. Hadwen describes are no less true today:
"No medical man during his student days is taught to think. He is expected to assimilate the thoughts of others and to bow to authority. Throughout the
whole of his medical career he must accept the current medical fashions of the day or suffer the loss of prestige and place. No public appointments, no coveted preferments are open to the
medical man who declines to parrot the popular shibboleths of his profession. His qualifications may be beyond reproach, he may himself possess qualities that command respect, but unless he is
prepared to think and act within the narrow circle of accepted dogmas, he must be prepared for a more or less isolated path.
"The public press today is largely governed by the orthodox rulers in the medical profession. The ubiquitous 'Medical Correspondent', who draws his
inspiration from the pages of current fashionable medical literature, is expected to supply only such copy as will gratify the tastes of the mysterious power that stands supreme behind the
editorial chair. The views of the unorthodox are, with rare exceptions, refused. So rigid is the control which medical orthodoxy holds over the public mind, that not a word upon health matters,
however important and interesting, is ever allowed to be broadcast by wireless unless it is approved and sanctioned by the bureaucrats of the Health Ministry.
"Every now and then some new medical "discovery" is proclaimed with clamorous voice. The public eye is arrested by commanding headlines in the leading
organs of the popular press. The simultaneousness of appearance and the similarity of the announcements leave no doubt as to how the whole scheme has been engineered. It may be a new
cancer-germ discovery; a new serum, vaccine or chemical inoculation; a new theory concerning some old-fashioned disease dressed up in a new garb; a new outcry against flies, fleas, lice,
cockroaches, dogs, cats, parrots, rats, or goats; but upon reflection, it will always be found that these "discoveries" are entirely devoid of originality.
"It is safe to say that among all these flaming pronouncements no real discovery has been made, no original medical idea has been promulgated, no permanent
contribution to medical science has beenfurnished, no advancement of medicine has been achieved. The public press has been utilized for the propagation of little else than medical
sensationalism, proved to be such in time by clinical and statistical experience. Practically all the modern claims of medicine are based upon the theories of Jenner and Pasteur, who have been
exalted almost to the position of deities, whose dicta it is held to be impious to question. Those theories, in spite of a strenuous and increasing struggle to fix them upon a scientific basis,
remain without foundation."
Modern medicine's scientific basis may be missing, but its financial profits are healthy, and anybody who jeapardizes them is in for trouble, or worse. Who
is "the mysterious power that stands supreme behind the editorial chair" which Dr. Hadwen hints at? The answer stands recorded in at least two books, Morris Bealle's The Drug Story, first
published in the '40s and reprinted thirty-six times and maybe more since then, although no American bookstore ever dared handling it; and NAKED EMPRESS or The Great Medical Fraud, published
and republished in the '80s.
The Sociological Aspect
From the sociological point of view, man is a herd animal, highly imitative to boot, as his fads and fashions show. His gregarious and conventional nature
influences accordingly his psychic attitude and character.
Contrary to their general conviction, human beings, with rare exceptions, are not mentally free, they shy away from venturing into independent thought,
from treading unexplored territory; most of all, they are afraid of spurning the dogmas that have moulded them, and of distancing themselves, also intellectually, from the herd. They feel safer
following a leader, some kind of father-figure, even without knowing his intimate nature, and not seriously worrying about where this leader might lead them. The moment individuals join a
marching herd, every thought process ceases. In fact, they feel freer in following some unknown leader than in having no leader to follow and being obliged to do their own thinking.
The written laws that rule our society in a constitutional state are an integral part of the system that the people want. They are quite happy with those
laws, and they are right. But not always. As happens in the field of science, also in jurisdiction some laws become obsolete, retrograde, they lag by decades, sometimes centuries, behind
reality, behind the wishes of the majority or the social and scientific changes and needs.
In fact, laws are changed all the time, old ones are superseded by new ones; but often this happens only under great pressure, which can take on the form
of violence and lead even to bloodshed. Think of all the social unrest of our time and past times, some leading to revolution and civil war.
Obviously, reforms are started by fierce individualists, by heretics, deserters from the herd, by fearless and therefor always small minorities. The
advocates of an abolition of vivisection on medical grounds today still represent a minority. But what does it signify? Wisdom is not found by counting noses. Most of what the whole world now
admits as true or takes for granted, and most great social reforms which have proved immensely beneficial, were originally advocated by a small, derided minority -sometimes a minority of
one.
The laws that exist in most so-called civilized countries still permit, at best by ommision, any and every kind of cruelty to animals, if done under the
pretext of medical research, or "science". But since medicine, by its own admission, is not an exact science, and a science that is not exact is not a science at all, but an oxymoron ( a
combination of contradictions), the cruelty carried out on animals is not only unscientific but illegal. And yet, in many countries, regulations established by the so-called health authorities
actually impose those unscientific, illegal tests. How is this possible? It is rendered possible by a fact that the public blissfully ignores, namely that those health authorities are in the
employ of the drug industry*, which prescribes those notoriously unreliable tests on animals for the very reason that they are unreliable: they provide the necessary alibi every time a new
pharmacological or therapeutic disaster occurs. Very few people are aware of that. They reason: if there are regulations, they must be good, in the public interest, like the laws against theft
and armed robbery.
As at this point in our history vivisection is still being regarded as an integral part of the order of things by the great majority of the population, it
is once more the dominating herd instinct of the human species that stands in the way, along with many other important obstacles, to any speedy reform.
____________________
* How Rockefeller's Drug Trust financed the General Board of Education in the beginning of this century in order to promote the consumption of products from its huge drug
empire, is related in NAKED EMPRESS or The Great Medical Fraud. CIVIS Publications, Switz., 1986.
The Religious Aspect
The conviction that man is a supremely rational being is one more delusion in which the majority please to bask, even though it is
a human idiosyncracy to be more susceptible to demagoguery than logic, more fascinated by fiction than facts, trusting more the occult than the visible.
The soap operas on TV command more devoted mass audiences than the goings-on on the Senate floor, even though the lawmakers' antics
will affect the citizens' lives more substantially than the capers of the screen characters ever will. More people carry life-long memories of the fairytales heard in childhood than the works
of Marx and Einstein, which most of them haven't read - no matter how deeply they have transformed the world's social and political structure. And in 1988 the press announced, pretending
surprise, that the world's most powerful individual had been looking to the stars for guidance, to the point that the intrusions of the astronomer "began to interfere with the normal conduct of
the Presidency", as one of Ronald Reagan's former aids (Don Regan) revealed. However, there was nothing surprising in this. Rulers and conquerers through the ages have been afflicted by the
very same magical dependency, from Adolph Hitler all the way back to the Babylonians and Assyrians.
Some great men have used this human peculiarity for noble purposes, as have the prophets and founders of the great religions -
Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed. Many have exploited it to their own advantage.
Banking on magic rather than logic, Modern Medicine, organized by industry-beholden health authorities along strictly commercial
lines, in collusion with the tax-squeezing governments, has managed to take over the role that formerly belonged to the Church. The licensed doctors are this new religion's ordained priests, in
whose hands the diffident patients are requested to place their full purse and blind trust, asking no questions. This has been obtained by blending facts so skillfully with fiction that not
only the lay public but also many of the participants themselves are unable to discern between the two.
Most people today deliberately ignore, or tolerate with an intimate feeling of reassurance, the incredible tortures to which
animals are subjected in the laboratories of official science. But in the past, the great majority also regarded witch-burning as a humanitarian activity that only the ignorant would oppose,
because it was not only assured to protect mankind from the devil, but also to benefit the victim, whose soul was purged and thus saved by the fire.
In the same vein, the most cruel experiments on animals are foisted off today on a credulous public as not only a blessing for
humanity but also for the animals themselves. And this, because the belief in the benefit of vivisection as a corollary to the excellence of modern medicine has been inculcated into the dense
minds of the population like a religious dogma, and with the same methods religions use to proselytize: continuous, systematic repetition of dogmatic claims unburdened by proof, beginning in
infancy, to the accompaniment of dark threats to any unbeliever, until the belief becomes a deeply radicated conviction - a blind faith, unfettered by thought. Freedom from thought is indeed
the inderogable requisite of any faith. Once a faith has been implanted without the aid of reason, it is very difficult to eradicate it by reasoning: it has become a superstition.
The Britannica gives the following definition of Superstition - "A belief founded on irrational feeings, especially of fear, and
marked by credulity; also, any rite or practise inspired by that belief. Specifically, a belief in a religious system regarded (by others than the believer) as without reasonable support.
Credulity regarding, or reverence for, the occult or supernatural.
It will be noted that this definition of superstition applies equally to religion as well as to the belief in the excellence of
modern medicine.
Thus, when we speak of the religion of modern medicine, we also mean to say the superstition of modern medicine, and the various
rites this medicine performs are closely connected to the financial gain - and power - of its white-robed priests, and more so of the heads of the syndicates, who make up the real power and
take the lion's share of the gains. (See NAKED EMPRESS or The Drug Story)
The vaccination myth is the most wide-spread superstition modern medicine has managed to impose, but, being also the most
profitable, it will prove also to be the most enduring, though there never was a shred of evidence upholding it.
Suffice it to say now that the various epidemics have experienced in all countries the same natural evolution of growth, decline,
and eventual disappearance, whether vaccination or other therapies had been introduced or not. The only demonstrable effects were the wide-spread damages caused by the various vaccinations,
none excluded.
Most pediatricians we know in Italy and France do not vaccinate their own children, although they cannot refuse to vaccinate their
clients' children, if they want to retain their union licence to practice. In (the former) West Germany, Medizinaldirektor Dr.med.Gerhard Buchwald had first to be shocked into awareness by
seeing his own son reduced to a vegetative state as a consequence of smallpox vaccination, before embarking upon a world-wide study that eventually led to the abolition of compulsory
vaccination in his country, after he had shown that there hadn't been a death from smallpox for years, but hundreds of people had died from the inoculation.
In the USA, several lawyers have published guidelines for parents on how to legally avoid vaccination, and several others have been
seeking out vaccination-damaged patients and suing the manufacturers of the killer medicament, with such success that many manufacturers refuse to produce vaccines unless the government that
imposes vaccination also insures the manufacturers against any damage suits; which many governments do.
These examples, added to many similar experineces by other doctors in other lands, are rational arguments, but they only very
slowly succeed in changing minds that have blindly adopted irrational irrational dogmas, unburdened by proof, as is the case with all religious dogmas.
So it can safely be predicted that the advertised belief in the alleged blessings of vaccination will be among the last of the
deadly rites of Modern Medicine to go, because it is far too profitable to the medical combine to be allowed to go without a bitter struggle, of which the beginnings can increasingly be seen
today, but which will certainly drag out into the next century. It is indeed so profitable - to industry and State - that it it is incentivated by being offered up, or imposed, free of
charge.
But in truth, who gets the bill? The taxpayer, of course.
That Modern Medicine can more rightly be defined as a religion than a science is demonstrated by the following:
An enlightened young patient at Zurich Cantonal Hospital had his torn Achilles tendon sewn together again and was ordered to take
some pills for several days. "Why take pills for a sewn-up tendon? Won't they affect my whole body? --- "Oh, no!" was the white-coated priest's cheerful reply. "Those pills have a selective
effect - only on your tendon!"
That a doctor in a leading hospital can make such a statement without fearing to be laughed at demonstrates to what extent Modern
Medicine has succeeded in passing itself off as a religion, in which the faithful are expected to have blind faith, rather than a science, which solicits discussions, debates and evidence.
The Mercenary Aspect
Maybe this single aspect is so strong that it might well sweep away the necessity of examining all the previous ones.
Human nature is contradictory, so that we are not only endowed with irrational instincts or feelings that may land us in some metaphysical impasse, as happens to the deeply
religious, but we can also be rationalizing in the extreme, especially when it comes to satisfying another characteristic of our nature: the miser's rapacious inclinations, a thirst for riches,
which can become addictive, and, once born, seldom stops growing.
Of this, almost everybody is well aware. But very few realize to what extent their own minds are constantly being manipulated by the gigantic, venal interests that mold
public opinion and influence the decisions of science at top levels.
As related in Naked Empress (CIVIS, 1982), some 90 percent of commercial advertising, the wherewithal of the mass media, derive from the petrochemical combine and its
business partners. And the media manipulate public opinion according to the interests of their main clients. Not so much through the seductive display ads, which only serve to sell products,
but much more determiningly through editorials, articles, reports, even letters-to-the-editor, which serve to sell ideas and to justify government policies.
Most of the big petrochemical combines use animals as testing material. Are those animal tests necessary? Indeed they are, but not for the reasons generally stated. They
don't serve to reveal the dangerousness of the tested products but, on the contrary, to conceal it.
What if there were no animals? Then the industry would have to test its products in some other way, with some scientific method, using human cell cultures, for example, or
any of the more than 400 other scientific methods available, which would quickly reveal the products' noxiousness. If such methods had been used, all-encroaching world-pollution would not be
what it is today.
To what extent commercial interests determine the consumption of test animals is shown by the following: a small country like Switzerland, with only 6.5 million inhabitants
but with a huge pharmaceutical industry, uses more laboratory animals than all of [former] Soviet Russia with its 170 million inhabitants, but where nobody can get rich from the sale of
drugs.
As a corollary to this situation, Switzerland has not only the highest consumption of laboratory animals in the world compared to the population, but is also, along with the
USA, one of the sickest nations. So it was to nobody's surprise when a 1987 survey showed that Switzerland was world champion in AIDS cases, proving once more what only the health authorities
profess to ignore: that modern medicine, thanks to its therapies and medications, has become the main cause of disease.
Of course, it would be the animal-welfare organizations' task to draw the public's attention not only to the cruelty of animal-testing, but principally to the damages
deriving from a fallacious system of research. But this, most of the big organizations fail to do, being no less infiltrated by commercial interests than the media and governments.
There is indeed nothing easier than to infiltrate an animal protection society. The wolf always arrives in sheep's clothing, the devil always knocks at the door flashing
smiles and a golden halo of sainthood; so that the overworked, sometimes underpaid and more often unpaid animal-welfare workers in the big societies will sooner or later be glad to relinquish
their post to the genial newcomer, who seems to have even more enthusiasm and energy and no pecuniary problems.
This explains such a phenomenon as that of the largest, richest animal-welfare society in the world, the RSPCA, whose patron is Her Gracious Majesty the Queen; RSPCA
propagandizes the necessity ofvivisection, never advertises the damage deriving to the people from this false method of research, and has invested most of its huge assets in bonds and stocks of
industries that practice vivisection."
Dr. Irwin J.D. Bross, with long experience in America's cancer research programs, sheds light on the monetary interests that keep vivisection going, in the Foreword to (DVM)
Brandon Reines' Cancer Research on Animals: Impact and Alternatives (1986). His considerations apply mainly to the USA, where most biomedical research comes from government sources (i.e.
taxpayer); in Europe it comes mainly from industry, which also finances the universities, to insure the support and the loyalty of the faculties. Writes Dr. Bross:
"It has been historically true in general that "he who pays the piper calls the tune". So what is deemed 'officially true' is what is in line with the
sponsor's policies, not neccesarily with the facts. Moreover, "authoritative opinion" nearly always supports the policies of its sponsors. Hence, the decisions in official science are political
decisions that only masquerade as scientific ones. Those in official science have the illusion that they are not politically controlled, and at times the public may share this illusion.
Whatever may be said, when the time comes to act, the actions are in line with the official medical policies.
Consider, for example, the fact that the National Cancer Institute has spent billions of dollars on animal experimentation. The myth that such research
produced the main chemotherapeutic drugs supports the continuance of this funding. The medical schools and research facilities of the biomedical establishment that share in this bonanza are
certainly not going to let mere facts interfere with this lucrative business. So even though the historical facts show that animal experiments were worse than useless in selecting clinically
effective cancer chemotherapies - they were consistently misleading - the 'concensus of authorities' will continue to say just the opposite. They may claim to love the truth, but when it is a
matter of truth versus dollars, they love the dollars more.
Showing the uselessness of animal model systems in cancer research can do more than prevent the pointless suffering of laboratory animals. It can
demonstrate why the public cannot afford to put its trust in official science. It can show that there is no rational basis for the hope that government agencies will prevent "cruel and
unneccesary punishment" of animals or, for that matter, of human patients. It can point the way to more effective action by animal welfare groups, concerned citizens at toxic dump sites, and
other groups who must go against official science.
The way to stop useless and unnecessary animal experimentation is simply to make it unprofitable: eliminate the funding by the government agencies or
eliminate the agencies. Reasonable approaches will not work with official science. Guidelines or legal limitations by government agencies are made to be evaded. It is pointless to present
factual evidence because it will only be ignored. Protests by animal welfare and other organizations are easily put off by official evasions. Even for official science however there is one
persuasive voice: Money talks.
If the flow of taxpayer dollars that supports the foolish or cruel or dangerous practices of official science is cut off, these practices will stop."
Conclusion
A perusal of the multitude of medical opinions - merely samples of a much larger collection - presented in this book might seem
encouraging to anti-vivisectionists, insofar as it shows them that the number of experts who consider vivisection not merely useless but dangerously misleading, and therefore to be abolished,
is much greater than they expected; on the other hand it could also be discouraging, because it shows that whatever is being said today has been said before; all the dire predictions that were
made over the last century by the really competent, honest and courageous doctors, such as the famed Hadwen of Gloucester, have meanwhile come tragically true, whereas all the extravagant
promises made by the laboratory barkers, the venal "science" magazines and the accredited "medical correspondents" have proved to be nothing but flatulent boasts.
Yet there has been no abolition, nor even reduction, of the misleading animal experiments; there hasn't been the slightest improvement, nor even
re-appraisal, on an official level. There have only been new tricks devised to keep the public anaesthetized and misinformed through the industry-beholden "health authorities" and the mass
media: tricks not designed to halt the proliferation of new and profitable drugs and maladies, but to enhance it.
Particularly damaging to the abolitionist cause are the "animal rights" organizations - lately much bally-hooed by the Press - which are either headed by
incompetent people, however honest they may be, or they have been taken over by the industrial interests, or else they have been founded by the latter outright. They deliberately restrict any
discussion about vivisection to philosophy, thereby concealing the mass of medical evidence that cries out for a quick demise of vivisection. Only scientific arguments can effect changes on a
political, i.e. practical level.
Thus the problem that not only the anti-vivisectionists but all of humanity face, if it is to survive, is how the invisible wall of censorship built up by
the evil forces that rule us can be broken. A way has to be found.
The problem does not lie so much with these evil forces as with humanity itself, whose majority tradionally lack the mental faculties to recognize the
truth until it is too late.
As Albert Einstein put it in a letter he wrote on April 10, 1938 from Princeton to a Rumanian friend, Maurice Solovine: "A fashion determines each age,
with most people unable to see the tyrants that rule them."
In this book [1000 Doctors (and many more) Against Vivisection] CIVIS has tried to show some of the tyrants that Einstein was referring to.
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