In the laboratory of ‘faith and tradition’, humans and science may go as guinea pigs

Always the pre-owned vehicle when we intent to buy or sell, the value would be lower than the condition and performance potential of the vehicle because of the depreciation factor. Overpricing and undervaluing are the two extreme components that drive the market. During both undervaluing and over pricing, the buyer or seller would initially use the uniqueness and specialties of the product and then would harp upon emotion, sentiments, and other esoteric means. Since most purchases are highly irrational, which factor really drive the buyer to relay to buy is, therefore, difficult to ascertain.

The neighbor’s envy, social pride and dignity etc., do drive the buyer to buy certain products barring the cost, its real utility value, and affordability. But no day, no one would buy something which has no real merit and usefulness is the general thumb rule. But emotional factors can over play merit and can make any merit-less material to meritorious is the secret story of AYUSH. The discussion is not about whether AYUSH products have any value or not, but do they deserve the tag –drug, have a real curative effect and if so where are the evidence and proof.

When we raise the question about the science of Tridosha and how it can be applied to diagnose various diseases, some AYUSH vadyas say it is philosophy and therefore Tridosha cannot be compared with modern methods of diagnosis and gadgets.

When we ask the question about how they relate the disease descriptions of Siddha or Ayurveda with modern disease terminology of allopathic system, they would say, they do not relay upon those traditional terms such as Kalanja padai (Psoriasis), ven padai (vitilogo) etc., instead they would conveniently use the disease terminology of allopathic system. Some even said that they would refer their patients to a dermatologist or other specialists and then would use the diagnosis.

It means, the Vaidya who has studied the BSMS or BAMS for 5 ½ years would use own system sparingly or never and use only the modern diagnostic methods and disease terminology. What is wrong? Nothing wrong and everything is wrong. To practice allopathic system, whey we produce AYUSH graduates and speak a lot about AYUSH?

For treating patients, again most AYUSH vaidyas in private practice would show a high level of hypocrisy and betrayal. Most of the so-called institutionally qualified AYUSH vaidyas practice allopathic drugs and to legally protect their practice that they are not exclusively practicing allopathic drugs, prescribe some AYUSH products. Some even follow different levels of ethics. Instead of prescribing allopathic drugs in the prescription pad, they would advise the patient to contact them from nearby chemists shop so that they could directly instruct the chemists shop to issue certain allopathic drugs to the patients as shared by one Siddha vaidya.

If we ask the proof of prescription from all the chemists shops in remote rural areas and located in the place where AYUSH vaidyas practice to establish how the chemist shops have sold antibiotics, steroids, and other drugs, the cat would come out of the bag. We can easily reconcile the list and quantity of drugs purchased by the chemist shop vis-à-vis sold.

The question is, have we not overvalued the values of AYUSH? Certainly, we have sold our intelligence, consciousness, and scientific temperaments to some silly sentiments – tradition, spirituality, religion, God etc.

Our hypocrisy is such that we love to preach many things to others very generously, altruistically and lavishly but are highly impoverished in practicing all those valuable advises. It means, all our gospels and moral values are only for others and not for us. The point is that we must prove the merit of AYUSH scientifically and not claim and promote pseudoscience.

Maybe due to our above patriotic feelings and wants to promote the concept of swadeshi and nationalism, we are promoting AYUSH as medical science, drug, diagnosis and cure based science. In every sense, AYUSH is paramedical practice.

Which diagnostic method of AYUSH is so unique, reliable in the diagnosis of many diseases that might beat all diagnostic methods such as MRI, CT scan, ELISA etc., no one is willing to explain. The most populist reason is that AYUSH has no explanations and science for all those questions but want everyone to simply believe and should not question the ancient tradition. It means, the method of diagnosis as described by AYUSH has gone totally and completely redundant.

The disease descriptions of AYUSH are highly subjective and figurative. When the proponents of AYUSH claim that their system has even the reference of HIV, sarcastically fail to explain how by using vata, pitta and kapha they can diagnose various diseases that the scientific world can understand.

By applying simple arithmetic formula we can easily ascertain the fact that at least 3 to 4 years every AYUSH vaidya would have spent in studying all the above unscientific narratives of AYUSH out of the 5 ½ years degree curriculum of BSMS or BAMS, said one Siddha vaidya.

The sickening truth is that many Siddha vaidyas claim that they have also studied modern anatomy, physiology, biochemistry etc. When they take pride in these subjects that they claimed to have studied why they do not take pride in the degree that they hold and the AYUSH parambara that they belong to? Why they engage in cross pathy and make pseudo-science to promote AYUSH?

The epicenter of the whole problem lies in the unfortunate truth that we have overvalued the most valueless. Undervaluing and overvaluing anything beyond its merit, both are not frugal market practices. We have made a fundamental mistake by promoting AYUSH as the system of medicine which is strictly paramedical in content.

No country in the world, even those who promote their local health practices and traditional system of medicine aggressively, have confused the people like us. All those countries have kept clear distinction and the demarcation between Traditional systems from scientifically proven allopathic medicine.

We have given undue dignity for AYUSH and are promoting AYUSH as proven medical science and are producing vaidyas from the system exactly as a doctor. If they are made to serve as Traditional Medicine Practitioners rather than as ‘doctor’ and not with the abbreviations like BSMS, BAMS alongside scientific medical system – MBBS, the poor people can easily differentiate AYUSH from allopathy.

To compound and complicate the confusion further, many AYUSH vaidyas are also engaged in cross pathy so the innocent people in all probability would like to believe AYUSH to be scientific and not faith based.

To authenticate the faith as science, the scientifically proven allopathic drugs help all those across pathians.

If there is a scarcity of proven and effective drugs, lack of accurate diagnostic methods and tools, confusion in describing the diseases etc., then we must accept the truth that overvaluation of any health care practice that might exist even without any merit can serve a little value.

But today, the best medical science and best medicines are available. Patients from many economically stable countries come to India for better allopathic treatment. Thanks to the effort of the MoH in implementing the DPCO norms strictly, most allopathic drugs are cost effective. Why still we promote and popularize the science less, faith-based AYUSH as medical science and producing graduates from such system as a doctor.

Unani has strong Islamic origin. But most of the Islamic countries promote only the scientifically proven allopathic system and not yielding or owning to Unani because of its Islamic origin.

Should we be committed to our people or to our tradition? Tradition should be for people and people should not be made as experimental guinea pigs in the laboratory of tradition and divinity. When we care holy cows, let us also care poor people in rural India who suffer from cross pathy and quackery.

Dr S Ranganathan