The Etiology (cause) of Mental Illness

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The cause of Mental Illness: Choice Mental illness is a behaviour, not a disease. The etiology of habitually running red lights, lying, shoplifting, mental illness and insanity are identical. Moral conscious choices have their origin in the human spirit not body chemicals or hormones. The etiology of joy and depression is the human spirit not the body. Body chemicals and drugs do not cause choice. What causes mental illness? The same choice that causes any human behaviour, both good and bad.

Introduction:

1. Contrary to the almost universally believed myth, there is absolutely no scientific evidence that the behaviours of mental illness are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain or bad DNA. In fact this myth is the result of one of the most successful advertising conns at the hands of drug companies and their paid spokeman: biopsychiatrists. Even the post graduate textbooks that train psychiatrists admit they have no idea what really causes insanity or any mental illness. Having rejected the dichotomous nature of man having a distinct spirit, they are forced to guess that it must be some body chemicals or DNA.
2. While psychiatrists have been wrongly guessing for hundreds of years at the cause of insanity, Christians, have almost always gotten it right. The etiology (cause) of mental illness is different for chemical psychiatry and Christians. There is a great divide along philosophical lines. Christians actually have the upper hand, for the chemical psychiatry industry cannot prove its case with hard scientific data. Its time for the trusting and naive public to wake up to the damage and evil the psychiatry industry is doing to their lives. It is a broad path of destruction.
3. The chemical biopsychiatry industry, being atheistic and evolutionary, rejects a spiritual cause in favor of a chemical imbalance that they believe they can fix through Neuroleptic and anti-psychotic drugs. The harm people suffer at the hands of Biopsychiatry is the punishment they deserve for rejecting faith in God and the Bible as the perfect moral blueprint for human behaviour.
4. The sober truth is that the psychiatry industry really has no idea what causes mental illness. Their message is this: "We really don't have any idea why you act and think the way you do, but our best guess is that you have bad genes and your brain of broken. We cannot cure you but if you take these drugs but you will feel better." To Christians, this is completely unacceptable.
5. For the Christian, it is clear that living a life in a way that is different than God designed us to live, will cause both physical disease and delusional thinking and a collection of sinful behaviours that are labeled as "mental illness".
6. Mental illness is caused by a freewill moral choice for which medicine has no treatments or cures. If you are on drugs prescribed by a psychiatrist or your family doctor, you are a junkie who is guilty of the sin of pharmakia, (Gal 5) which involved the use of mind altering drugs. Psychiatric drugs dumb you down and make you indifferent and lethargic. The withdrawal effects are as bad as heroin.
   
7. The behaviours commonly associated with "Mental illness" is not caused by sin, rather these behaviours are sinful in themselves. Mental illness is a behaviour choice of the human spirit whose "etiology" is identical to every other human behaviour. All behaviours, whether good or bad, are not diseases that can be cured, but thoughts and conduct that result from a conscious choice.
8. The Bible clearly teaches that people suffer both physically and emotionally as a result of sinful choices. The world labels this suffering as a mental illness, but the Bible labels this suffering as the consequences of a sinful standard of morality. Mental illness is sinful conduct.
   

 A. The etiology of Down's, Diabetes, and Depression (mental illness)

1. Whereas there are blood tests to detect diseases like Diabetes, and genetic tests for Downs Syndrome, there is no scientific test to detect any mental illness.
2. Whereas Diabetes is caused by a chemical imbalance in the body and instantly cured by a drug (insulin), drugs given to the mentally ill do not cure them. Rather they have a stupefying, doping effect that merely removes the symptoms.

	Etiology	Scientific test	Cure, treatment
Down's syndrome	Genetic test for extra chromosome in 100% of patients	100% accuracy	No cure or treatments: drugs ineffective
Diabetes	Test for low insulin levels in 100% of patients	100% accuracy	No cure. Treatment with insulin
Depression (or any mental illness)	No known scientific tests available.	No known scientific tests available.	No cure or treatments. Drugs merely stupefy.

B. Here are a few examples of how choice can lead to being labeled mentally ill:

1. All anxiety is caused primarily by a lack of faith. For the Christian, it is a lack of faith that God will do what he promised. It is also a lack of obedience in the command, "be not anxious". For the non-Christian it is lack of faith in a divine, all powerful saviour to help. This leaves the person to fend for themselves with their own failed finite, human resources and powers. The Christian doesn't really believe their saviour will help and provide but the non-Christian has no saviour at all! The resulting anxiety is the same. Anxiety can lead to insanity. 2. All Depression is caused primarily by a lack of contentment. For the Christian, depression is a lack of obedience to the command "be content with what you have". It is not accepting your current condition, whether good or bad. It is a lack of faith that God loves you. It is a lack of hope of the glories and riches of heaven awaiting. For the non-Christian, depression is a lack of faith in a creator. It is a rejecting of Jesus for faith in Darwin. Darwin said we have no purpose, design, meaning other than random chance processes. Jesus can cure the depression of the atheist because their life has meaning and eternal purpose. Depression can lead to insanity. 3. Sinful conduct can lead to delusion (insanity) whenever guilt is involved. Guilt is the result of the conscience producing a bad feeling for doing that which you believe is wrong. Christians are more often stricken with madness as a result of guilt than non-Christians because non-Christians sin without guilt. Guilt (cognitive dissonance) can lead to insanity. Substance abuse is sinful conduct that can lead to delusional and paranoid thinking patterns. 4. Sinful anger is caused primarily by a lack of selflessness. Anger is the a specific desire for revenge when wronged or a general feeling of not getting what you think you deserve in life based upon your own view of self worth. Anger can lead to insanity. 5. Remember that all mental disorders are diagnosed by behaviour labeling not medical blood tests. It is impossible to diagnose a schizophrenic unless he talks.

C.      Here are a few additional examples of behaviour diagnosis from a Biblical point of view:

Behaviour	Etiology	Comment	cure
AID: "atheism induced depression"	Belief in Darwinian evolution that causes a lack of purpose, design and meaning.	Predictable feelings based upon false information of an origin of random chance processes	Change religion from humanism and become Christian, read the Bible
LCD, LCA: "Life choices depression or anxiety"	No money	Low paying job because dropped out of school, or got fired or quit, or unable, bad business deal, stock market	Be content you are breathing
LSD: "Life Status depression or anxiety"	bad marriage, slavery, lack of education, handicapped, disease, disability	common to all humanity	acceptance of life situation.
SID: "Sin induced depression or anxiety" SIS: "Sin induced schizophrenia"	Sin and guilt (cognitive dissonance)	Only affects Christians since non-Christians do not experience guilt from sin.	Repent and stop sinning
AIS: "Anger induced schizophrenia"	Anger	Anger can lead to delusional and psychotic behaviour choices	Stop being angry, accept being wronged, have low self esteem
MOA: "Money oriented Anxiety"	Focused on materialistic things. Failure to acquire, keep or risk of losing money unhappiness with present standard of living or future risk of living a lower standard of living. Going bankrupt and losing your Porsche.	The love of money is the cause of all sorts of evil and many people suffer as a result.	Stop focusing on the riches of this world, focus on riches in heaven, be content with what you have.

D.      Life choices to life situations is the root of insanity:

1. "Unhappiness, desperation, disappointment, and suicide are part and parcel of the human condition. They are owing neither to possession by demons nor to diseases of the mind. Everyone knows it, but not everyone has the courage to believe it, much less to assert it. Meanwhile, the business of (mis)diagnosing people as suffering from mental illnesses and mistreating them with drugs, electricity, surgery, and conversation grows apace. And no cartoonist, no columnist, no mental health educator, no establishment psychiatrist or psychologist dares to mention the proverbial elephant in the room- coercion. Today more than ever, psychiatry is a combination of pseudoneurology and the use of state-sponsored force, a sand castle of abstractions (consciousness, the unconscious, mental illness, chemical imbalance) masquerading as agents." (Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, Thomas Szasz, 2008 AD, p 47)

2. "Can we even define as disease syndromes that have no clear-cut physiological etiology or pathophysiology? Is psychology, which deals half in metaphor, half in statistics, really a science at all?" (Lauren Slater, Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the twentieth Century, p 3)

3. "As noted, the decision to take or to stop taking psychiatric drugs should be a personal one. It should not be trivialized by glib acceptance of pseudo-medical arguments from your doctor or others such as "This drug is the most effective treatment for your serious illness" or "This drug corrects biochemical imbalances in your brain" or "Never fail to take this medication; it's just like insulin for diabetes." In the field of mental health, not a single physical explanation has been confirmed for any of the hundreds of psychiatric "disorders" listed in the DSM-IV. A recent editorial in the American Journal of Psychiatry states the case plainly: "[A]s yet, we have no identified etiological agents for psychiatric disorders."' Even in this age of biological quick fixes, an increasing number of researchers are documenting the observation that nondrug approaches produce equivalent or better results than drugs. This is true even for problems considered extremely serious, such as "schizophrenia." Your doctor's claims to the contrary have little or no scientific basis." (Your Drug May Be Your Problem, Peter Breggin, David Cohen, 2007 AD, p 138)

4. "Life is an unending series of choices and, therefore, "problems in living." Ordinary choices-such as what to have for breakfast-we ignore as trivial. Extraordinary choices such as whether to kill ourselves-we dismiss as the symptoms of mental illness. The profession of psychiatry rests on, and caters to, the ubiquitous human desire to avoid and evade, indeed deny the very possibility of, morally "unthinkable" choices. We use the rhetoric of psychiatry to transform such choices into medical-technical problems and "solve" them by appropriate "medical treatments." This discourse is why deception is intrinsic to the principles of psychiatry, and coercion-as-cure to its practices." (Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, Thomas Szasz, 2008 AD, p 112)

E. Demon possession does not cause of mental illness:

1. Click here for a full discussion of what the Bible says about demon possession.

2. In Mark 5 there is an example of demon possession where the man was unable to be bound with any chain man could make and supernatural knowledge that Jesus was the Son of God, before humans had comprehended this truth from the teachings of Jesus himself.
3. In Acts 16:16 you have an example of demon possession that was similar to modern fortune telling: "It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling." Acts 16:16. Save your money on modern fortune tellers.
1. I always laugh that in Quebec, Canada a fat, blonde woman named "JoJo Savard" who owned "JoJo's Psychic Alliance", claimed to be a fortune teller and flooded the TV with hundreds of commercials. She failed to foresee her own bankruptcy!
   
2. All modern fortune tellers and psychics are frauds!
3. So are all TV faith healing preachers like Peter Popoff and Benny Hinn!
4. Christians do not get a total free pass in this issue either. A study documents that 1 in 3 Christians believe that demon possession is a possible cause of mental illness. This is as superstitious as it is anti-biblical! Demon possession is not insanity.

4. The Case of Demon: People enter counseling and deliberately fake a mental illness merely because they want the attention. In this case, Joe was clearly using this act for self-entertainment and to satisfy his need for attention. The whole prison was talking about him! Instead of being prisoner #33402AL, he was the crazy demon possessed man everyone talked about and was terrified of! It is rather boring in prison, but a faithful gospel preacher who knows his Bible cured this guy of his, "mental illness" of split personality. Pentecostals and charismatics are utterly deceived and useless in cases like this because they wrongly believe demon possession still happens today.

5. Multiple Personality Disorder is a myth and the product of junk pop science. Hollywood movies like Sybil or the "Faces of Eve" have propagated this myth in the eyes of the ignorant public. Psychiatrists don't really care if it is a myth, they make money off it! It is clear from both these stories like Sybil, that she was a bored, lonely and rather insignificant woman who found her life suddenly the center of everyone's attention. It is also clear that she was faking the whole thing. The stupid psychiatrists bought the whole thing critically without question because they wanted to be famous and document a newly discovered mental illness. So the psychiatrist's desire for personal fame, fortune and recognition coupled with Sybil's desire for attention is the foundation of MPD. Today most people who know better, reject MPD as a bad example of junk science at its worst! MPD is actually a Factitious disorder: Faking mental illness: F68.1

6. The Bible does teach demon possession is the cause of insanity. Demon possession is where a supernatural being, like an evil angel, inhabits or controls or takes over the free will of a human. Demon possession was always accompanied by two things that mentally humans lack: supernatural strength and supernatural knowledge. Demon possession has not happened since the apostolic age ended 1900 years ago.
7. Movies like "The Exorcist" are somewhat realistic portrayals of demon possession, although demon possession ceased in 100 AD and does not happen today. If it did, there would be unanimous agreement that the person was demon possess because all would see with their own eyes the supernatural power and knowledge. Till then, Christians should stop spreading false doctrine that demon possession happens today.

F. Experts admit that sin and life choices cause lead to delusion.

1. "the biomedical model ignores the social conditions that give rise to psychopathology" (Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry, Colin A. Ross, M.D., & Alvin Pam, Ph.D., 1995, p. 6).
2. "Biological factors enter into all behavior, including symptoms, but only rarely are the cause and significance of a patient's behavior primarily biologically driven" (Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry, Colin A. Ross, M.D., & Alvin Pam, Ph.D., 1995, p. 4).
3. "Patients these days are not suffering from "biologic illnesses." What I generally see is patients suffering from current or past violence, traumatic loss, loss of power or control over their lives and the effects of cultural fragmentation, isolation and impoverishment that are specific to this culture at this time." (Against Biologic Psychiatry, Dr. David Kaiser, Psychologist, Psychiatric Times, December, Dec. 1996, Vol. XIII, Issue 12)
4. "Thus in my view the whole phenomenon of biologic psychiatry is itself a symptom or acting out of a larger, underlying cultural process. Unhappiness and suffering are not seen as resulting from real cultural conditions; for example, the collapse of traditional institutions and the ever increasing hegemony of rampant consumerism in American culture. Nor is suffering seen in the context of what it means to exist as a human being in any historical period. Historical and existential discourse about unhappiness is increasingly supplanted by medical discourse, and biologic psychiatry has served as one of the major mouthpieces for this kind of pseudo-scientific and frankly pathetic medical discourse about what ails us." (Against Biologic Psychiatry, Dr. David Kaiser, Psychologist, Psychiatric Times, December, Dec. 1996, Vol. XIII, Issue 12)
5. "Having said this, what I am advocating is a psychiatry which devotes itself humbly to the task of listening to patients in a way that other medical practitioners cannot. This means paying close attention to a patient's current and past narrative without attempting to control, manipulate or define it. From this position a psychiatrist can then assist the patient in raising relevant questions about their lives and pain." (Against Biologic Psychiatry, Dr. David Kaiser, Psychologist, Psychiatric Times, December, Dec. 1996, Vol. XIII, Issue 12)
6. "The mind can cause certain diseases." (Channeling and faith healing: Scam or miracle, Carl Sagan, Parade, Dec 4, 1994, p10)

G. Chemical Psychiatry cannot find a chemical or biological cause:

There is no scientific proof that chemical imbalances even exist, must less that they cause mental illness. Please read the full discussion on the myth of a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes mental illness.

1. "It is important to remember that even today we possess no rational consensus upon the nature of mental illness-what it is, what causes it, what will cure it." (Roy Porter, historian of psychiatry, A Social History of Madness, 6)
2. "The inability to find groundbreaking etiological discoveries over the last 100 years should not be discouraging because major brain pathology along the lines of that seen in Alzheimer's disease is not necessary for mental illness to occur." (The Journal of mind and behavior, Guy A. Boysen, v28, p 157-173)
3. Delusional disorder: "The cause of delusional disorder is unknown, although it is unlikely that delusional disorders are related to schizophrenia or the mood disorders. The relatives of probands with delusional disorder show increased rates of jealously, suspiciousness, paranoid personality, and delusional disorder over control relatives, but the families have no increase in schizophrenia or mood disorders. ... Other potentially relevant risk factors for delusional disorder include social isolation and immigration. Prison psychosis has been described in which persons placed in solitary confinement have developed a paranoid psychosis." (Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry, Hales, Yudofsky, 2003 AD, p 425)
4. Schizophrenia: "The development of multiple competing theories about the cause of schizophrenia parallels its history. Early theories were shaped by limited knowledge about the nature of mental illness and inadequate research methods. There is still disagreement about the relative contribution of genetic and nongenetic factors to the development of schizophrenia, despite advances in psychiatric nosology, epidemiology, and genetics. Recent work, however, has emphasized the importance of the interaction of both genetic and nongenetic factors in disease expression. Consensus now exists among many investigators that schizophrenia is best conceptualized as a "multiple-hit" illness similar to cancer. Individuals may carry a genetic predisposition, but this vulnerabilty is not "released" unless other factors also intervene." (Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry, Hales, Yudofsky, 2003 AD, p 403)
5. Mood disorders: "The conviction that there must be some inherent bio-dynamic alteration in mood disorders has continued to be held over the years (Whybrow et al. 1984). Herman Boerhaave, a prominent Leiden physician of the eighteenth century, argued that depression was caused by "nervous and melancholy juice." Psychologist William James argued that changes in mood must be accompanied by some form of "chemical action." ... Modern technology has made it possible to study the "humors" and "melancholy juices" of the twentieth century—biological rhythms, neuroanatomy, neurotransmitters, receptors, and intracellular messengers. However, we will see that, as van Praag (1990) pointed out, "though a lot of biology has been uncovered in mental disorders, most of it seems to be devoid of nosological [classification or list of diseases] specificity"" (Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry, Hales, Yudofsky, 2003 AD, p 478)
6. "No biological markers for any classic psychiatric disorders (such as major depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder) have yet been confirmed as having a clearly defined utility in routine clinical practice. Nevertheless, psychiatrists and clinical neuroscientists continue their search for biological markers that will be useful to clinicians in making diagnostic, treatment, and prognostic determinations for psychiatric patients. The promise of research involving potential biological markers is that they may help elucidate the underlying pathophysiology of psychiatric illness, suggest useful new diagnostic approaches and subtyping strategies, and lead to more efficacious treatment approaches." (Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry, Hales, Yudofsky, 2003 AD, p 250)
7. "The history of biological psychiatry can be depicted as a tale of 'promising' leads, closure on slender evidence, hyperbole as initial reception to new work, and ultimately unproductive results. ... following about a century of effort, a harsh assessment would be that no substantive results have been tendered for the pathogenesis [chain of events that lead to] of any major psychiatric disorder" (Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry, Colin A. Ross, M.D., & Alvin Pam, Ph.D., 1995, p. 42).
8. "Diagnostic reliability is easy to attain for research projects. The issue is what do the categories tell us? Do they in fact accurately represent the person with a problem? They don't, and can't, because there are no external validating criteria for psychiatric diagnoses. There is neither a blood test nor specific anatomic lesions for any major psychiatric disorder. So, where are we? APA as an organization has implicitly (sometimes explicitly as well) bought into a theoretical hoax. Is psychiatry a hoax, as practiced today?" (L.R. Mosher, Psychiatrist, resignation letter from the American Psychiatric Association, 1998)

9.  "As noted, the decision to take or to stop taking psychiatric drugs should be a personal one. It should not be trivialized by glib acceptance of pseudo-medical arguments from your doctor or others such as "This drug is the most effective treatment for your serious illness" or "This drug corrects biochemical imbalances in your brain" or "Never fail to take this medication; it's just like insulin for diabetes." In the field of mental health, not a single physical explanation has been confirmed for any of the hundreds of psychiatric "disorders" listed in the DSM-IV. A recent editorial in the American Journal of Psychiatry states the case plainly: "[A]s yet, we have no identified etiological agents for psychiatric disorders."' Even in this age of biological quick fixes, an increasing number of researchers are documenting the observation that nondrug approaches produce equivalent or better results than drugs. This is true even for problems considered extremely serious, such as "schizophrenia." Your doctor's claims to the contrary have little or no scientific basis." (Your Drug May Be Your Problem, Peter Breggin, David Cohen, 2007 AD, p 138)

10. "Biological psychiatry has not made a single discovery of clinical relevance in the past 10 years, despite hundreds of millions of dollars of research funding" (Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry, Colin A. Ross, M.D., & Alvin Pam, Ph.D., 1995, p. 116)

H. The circular reasoning of the genetic cause of mental illness

There is no scientific proof that mental illness is caused at the DNA level. Here is a complete discussion of mental illness and genetics.

1. Almost no one outside the medical community has actually looked directly at the data that the chemical psychiatry industry uses as proof that mental illnesses are caused by genetics. We have, and a genetic cause of mental illness is false as it is theoretical.
2. As an illustration, Reginald Bibby, a sociologist with the university Lethbridge, Alberta, has long documented that the most significant factor in determining religious denominational affiliation, is the church the parents attended. Religion runs in families. But so does mental illness, anxiety, depression, alcoholism, poverty, divorce and high school drop outs. We understand why we would never look for a genetic cause for denominational affiliation, poverty, divorce or why entire ghettos have 90% drop out rates. So why would we look for a genetic cause for anxiety and depression? Genetic studies that are supposed to "prove" a genetic cause for mental illnesses are done by a verbal sociology survey, not an electron microscope in a scientific laboratory. The "science" and "proof" of a genetic cause for mental illness is when psychiatrists ask: "is there a family history of depression or anxiety in your family? The problem with this, is that anxiety and depression are learned responses to how to deal with life's everyday ups and downs.
3. The circular reasoning, then, goes like this: Psychologists study families and discover a higher incidence of a mental illness that "runs in the family". They then conclude that it must therefore be genetic. Psychiatrists then claim that mental illness is clearly in the DNA and point to "family studies" as proof! The fact is that this is wildly irresponsible science and the conclusions are very highly suspect.
4. "Scientifically, the only conclusion that can be reached from studying the pattern of occurrence of a disorder in a pedigree [in a family] is an inversion of biological psychiatry's logical error: If there is no familial pattern, one can rule out an inherited cause. If there is a pattern of family transmission, on the other hand, there may be a purely inherited cause, a purely environmental cause, or a mixture of the two" (Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry, Colin A. Ross, M.D., & Alvin Pam, Ph.D., 1995, p. 89).
5. Here is a typical entry in the textbooks that medical students learn from in university in order to become a psychiatrist: "Evidence for a hereditary contribution to schizophrenia is based on family studies, twin studies, and studies of adoptees." (Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry, Hales, Yudofsky, 2003 AD, p 403)
1. The problem is that when they speak of genetics, they determine this by studying outward observable social characteristics, NOT GENETICS.
2. They are not looking at DNA under a microscope, they are doing comparative social studies of identical and fraternal twins, siblings and adoptees living in a single family unit.
6. Here is a complete discussion of mental illness and genetics.

Conclusion:

1. The Bible is clear in its teaching that sin is not only the cause of mental illness, sin is mental illness.
2. The psychiatry industry has no idea what causes mental illness and even less of an idea how to cure it. They always fall back on drugs as a temporary 4 hour fix, until the next dose of drugs is taken.
3. Chemical psychiatry admits sin causes mental illness, that they have no idea what causes mental illness.
4. It is solely on the basis of faith, not scientific fact, that the psychiatry industry believes mental illness is caused by defects in the DNA and chemical imbalances in the brain.
5. There is no scientific proof that chemical imbalances even exist, must less that they cause mental illness.
6. "I am increasingly astonished about how unable the average patient is now to articulate reasons for their unhappiness, and how readily they will accept a "medical" diagnosis and solution if given one by a narrow-minded psychiatrist. This is a cultural pathologic dependence on medical authority. Granted, there are patients who do fight this kind of definition and continue to search for better explanations for themselves which are less infantilizing, but in my experience this is not common. There is a frightening choking off of the possibility for dissent and creative questioning here, a silencing of very basic questions such as "what is this pain?" or "what is my purpose?" Modern psychiatry has unconscionably participated in this pathology for its own gain and power. It is a moral, not scientific issue at stake here, and in my view this is why many astute Americans rightfully distrust this new psychiatry and its Utopian claims about happiness through medical progress." (Against Biologic Psychiatry, Dr. David Kaiser, Psychologist, Psychiatric Times, December, Dec. 1996, Vol. XIII, Issue 12)
7. When mentally ill people confess their sins to Jesus and repent of their sinful lives and put their faith and trust in God, they will be almost instantly cured of mental illness. Why not visit a good, Bible believing our local church in your own home town.
8. Click here to find the closest church to your home.

By Steve Rudd: Contact the author for comments, input or corrections.

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