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CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says that being rich or poor in America is a big factor in determining who is healthy and who is not.
Murthy told about 600 graduates at the Medical University of South Carolina on Friday that health equality is a civil rights issue in the nation.
Murthy told the graduates at the medical school in Charleston that one of the biggest challenges facing the country is moving from a culture where medicine treats the diseases people have to a culture where those diseases are prevented in the first place.
Murthy was confirmed last year as the nation's 19th surgeon general. The surgeon general is considered the nation's doctor and a spokesman on ways to improve the health of U.S. citizens.
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