From Quacks to Quackery –The truth and science of AYUSH

Every country to the best my knowledge has supported their traditional health care practice to grow & develop to become useful to the society. But unfortunately, none of the native health care system (except a few) has grown scientifically and become useful to humanity like the scientifically proven allopathic system.

If we search the reasons for the failure of AYUSH in India, it is mainly due to the lack of science and unwillingness of most AYUSH experts to encounter questions pertaining to the merit of AYUSH. The AYUSH experts often claim that they have several preparations for indigestion but it seems, they use none of those preparations to digest some of the hard questions. Instead, most of them engage in verbal abuse to shoot down the messenger than seeing the message in the holistic sense. Ironically most of them claim that their system is holistic but are most un-holistic to questions and criticism.

If we look at the list of essential drugs of Siddha system, we can find that there are 302 products listed as essential drugs of Siddha system. Similarly, if we look at the list of Ayurveda products under the list of essential drugs, we can find 277 products under the list.

According to WHO, the essential drugs are defined as "those drugs that satisfy the health care needs of the majority of the population; they should, therefore, be available at all times in adequate amounts and in appropriate dosage forms, at a price the community can afford." Further, it states that the essential drugs must be selected with due regard to public health relevance, evidence on efficacy and safety, and comparative cost-effectiveness.

If we were to assume that all the 302 products of Siddha system of medicine and 277 products of Ayurveda indeed satisfy the health care needs of the majority of the population in India as per the WHO definition of essential drugs, then why India have so much of health care problems especially in rural areas?

Another point is that the essential drugs must be selected based on relevance, evidence on efficacy and safety. Does that mean all the 277 products of Ayurveda and 302 products of Siddha system listed under essential drugs of the respective systems are effective, relevant and safe? If they are relevant and effective, then how can we have so much of health problems in rural India?

Can the Ministry of AYUSH provide details about the relevance, efficacy, and safety of all the 302 Siddha and 277 Ayurveda products listed under essential drug list of AYUSH?

When so many proven, relevant and safe drugs from AYUSH are already available, where is the scope for the Government to legalize cross pathy by AYUSH vaidyas? Why many AYUSH vaidyas in private practice engage in cross pathy and claim that they have the right to do so? When they are cornered, why some AYUSH vaidyas in private practice justify such an act as ‘under emergency’ situation, they prescribe allopathic drugs to save the patients.

Most of the institutionally qualified AYUSH vaidyas do describe the traditional vaidyas (who are not institutionally qualified) as quacks and defame the system by making tall claims and false promises. In most states, legal actions are also taken against the traditional or parambarya vaidyas as well mostly at the behest of institutionally qualified AYUSH vaidyas.

The big question is if the traditional vaidyas are quacks as described by some institutionally qualified Siddha vaidyas, then how different is quackery from quacks?

According to Honorable Supreme Court of India, the term ‘quack’ is defined as a “person who does not have knowledge of a particular system of medicine but practices [it] and [is] a mere pretender of medical knowledge or skills.”

The question is how some of the institutionally qualified AYUSH vaidyas in private practice who justify cross pathy to be their birthright are different from the traditional vaidyas who are described by them as a quack?
Another funny fact is that some institutionally qualified Siddha vaidyas often claim that they also have studied basic physiology, biochemistry, anatomy etc., and hence are competent to practice allopathic medicine. The sad fact they are yet to understand is that they were given basic exposure to science only to help them to evaluate their system more scientifically than from keep uttering their system to be time tested, faith-based, God’s gift, has empirical evidence etc. But instead of using the elementary exposure of science given to them to validate their system, they use such knowledge to claim their authority, professorship, scholarliness for cross pathy.

The question before our nation is that when 302 Siddha and 277 Ayurveda products are listed under essential drugs of the system and several proprietary AYUSH formations are also available, why the AYUSH vaidyas in private practice go after cross pathy? Does that situation not raise doubts on the efficacy of these AYUSH products? Then should the Government of India re-visit its policy in promoting and popularizing AYUSH as medical science and producing the AYUSH graduates as a doctor?

The important message of Shri Baba Ramdev, the world famous Yoga guru shared to Times of India on September 10, 2016, the Government of India must take in its totality. Shri Baba Ramdev clearly stated that we should explore Yoga, Ayurveda and Vedic essence for health and positive thinking. It means we should use AYUSH more for bio-moral recipes than as drug-disease-diagnosis-cure based system like allopathic science. The paramedical benefits of AYUSH must be promoted and we must stop producing AYUSH graduates as a doctor. Instead, we must encourage them to provide wellness and health recipes to people. The reason for the crisis in our public health care delivery system is solely due to promote the paramedical AYUSH as medical science and producing the graduates from such system as a doctor.

When the institutionally qualified AYUSH vaidyas call their traditional vaidya brethren as quacks, won’t they fit themselves into the same definition of a quack as laid down by the Honorable Supreme Court of India when they justify cross pathy? Then are they not doing quackery by doing cross pathy?

We must carefully introspect the issue of cross pathy by AYUSH vaidyas in private practice to understand the truth. If the 302 drugs of Siddha system and 277 drugs of Ayurveda listed as essential drugs are effective, scientific and curative, why the AYUSH vaidyas have to engage in cross pathy?
The truth may be that the essential drugs of AYUSH are essentially ineffective.

Another interesting fact is that all the essential drugs are indicated for various health conditions that are described either in Tamil for Siddha products or in Sanskrit for Ayurveda products. The question is none of the disease descriptions as described by the respective systems ever share any similarity or resemblance with the disease descriptions of modern medicine.

However, the experts of AYUSH have somehow stretched their imagination beyond all limits and have correlated with the allopathic disease descriptions. For example, what is described as padar thamarai (spread like a lotus) in Tamil has been described as a synonym for ringworm/dermatophytic infection. Accordingly, the Siddha system has positioned Seemaiagathi pasai for treating ringworm disease.

The question is whether the Seemaiagathi pasai is as effective as various azole antifungal drugs, allylamine preparations…… etc if not known, are we not harming the innocent people to treat such infections with Seemaiagathi pasai and get worsened? Another product is also claimed to have antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral effects called Gandhak Rasayan. When these preparations are already available and are effective as claimed by the system, where is the scope for AYUSH vaidyas to migrate to allopathy?

If we search the "nadhi moolam rishi moolam" of AYUSH, we can easily locate the problem. It is the wrong policy of the Government that has caused so much confusion in our society. We are promoting the paramedical wellness based practice as medical science and are producing graduates from such system as a doctor.

As a result, we cry
“water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink”

Ref: the poem “The rime of the ancient mariner” written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

We have lakhs of drugs in AYUSH but none of them are useful mostly even to the institutionally qualified AYUSH vaidyas in private practice otherwise where is the scope for cross pathy?

Hope we will wake up one day if not soon and will get AYUSH to serve our society as paramedical practice and not as medical science. Let us stop producing AYUSH vaidyas as a doctor.

Dr. S Ranganathan