Has Ayurveda lost its credibility?

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Wednesday December 20, 11:11 PM

New Delhi: “Almost all diseases are curable permanently without spending money on costly medicines, operations or surgery. Hope you shall take this in positive spirits & give it a serious thought. It is surprising, but it is true that this is the cheapest and the only permanent cure to most of incurable diseases like Diabetes, Cancer, HIV & AIDS too”—Baba Ramdev website

Aforementioned is an excerpt from Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev's website. His however is not the only website to make such claims. There are scores others who vouch that a certain herbal concoction or yoga can cure diabetes, cancer and even HIV AIDS.

In a country, which has 30 million diabetics and over 5 million people suffering from HIV AIDS, it's easy to fall into such traps, which guarantee magic cure. Especially when it's Ayurveda or Yoga—medical concepts catching up fast in the West.

“The biggest problem here is that not only it leads to wastage of money, but it’s a misleading people,” says Dr Chandra M Gulhati Editor of Monthly Index of Medical Specialities (MIMS).


In an effort to stop misleading people, the Health and Welfare ministry is trying to amend the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act of 1954.

The Act prohibits publication of any drug advertisement which can mislead people or indirectly give false impression regarding the true character of a drug or make false claims.

However, a major drawback is that the act enlists only 54 diseases out of which 14 are now curable such as tuberculosis, typhoid and pneumonia. Also diseases like HIV/AIDS have not even been listed in the act.

“There are two problems with our laws. They are antiquated and more serious than that, the implementation of these defective laws is so poor that not even one person has gone to jail so far for making exaggerated claims,” says Dr Chandra M Gulhati.

Yoga is good says the health ministry but it cannot be placed on an equal level with Allopathic medicines. It seems that in the continuing conflict between traditional Indian medicine and modern medicine, the latter has lost its essence.(Courtesy: