To the editors:
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When I was one year old I was diagnosed with asthma and hay fever. From that moment until I was in my early 20s I was continually using strong prescription drugs. As a teenager I began to realize that the drugs were causing problems, and on slowly reducing my use (against the advice of the legion of doctors) I found the drugs were causing my mood swings, spaciness, fatigue, anxiety attacks, insomnia, and migraine headaches. No doctor had ever mentioned these side effects to anyone in my family or to me.
I found it was impossible to visit a traditional AMA doctor without having at least three prescriptions forced on me, so I stopped going. All by myself, by experimentation, I discovered that I’m allergic to two foods. If I avoid these foods I need almost no medication. The little I use I can get over the counter. I hardly need to point out that if all those AMA doctors had been on the ball they could have directed my mother in discovering my food allergies and I might have had a normal, happy, nonmedicated childhood.
Julia Baresch
