From India's largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the
Times of India podcast. Whether it was a cholesterol or
whether it was a fatty liver, whether it was a diabetes,
pressure, arthritis, he said. That there is a cure for all
these things in the Ayurvedic medicine and allopathy doesn't
have anything wherein we found that many patients have left the
proper allopathic medicines and gone and switched over.
That's Doctor Jayesh Leli, who is the honorary secretary
general of the Indian Medical Association.
He's also the man who started a legal battle against yoga guru
and Patanjali Co founder Ramdev, due to which the yoga guru has
had to apologize before the Supreme Court.
Doctor Lilly achieved widespread fame in 2021 during the height
of the 2nd wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, when he tore into
Ramdev during a live television debate.
At the time Doctor Lilly was questioning the launch of
Patanjalis product called Coronel, which the company
claimed cured COVID-19. The move earned Dr. Lily
widespread support on social media, but it didn't stop the
companies promotion of the so-called drug in any way.
The product had been launched by Ramdev in the presence of Union
ministers Harsh Vardhan and Nitin Gutkari just days earlier.
There's no evidence of how many people consumed this product
thinking it would protect them. But then we also don't know how
many people died during the height of the 2nd wave of the
COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Doctor Lilly says it was the
launch of this product which prompted the Indian Medical
Association to go to the Supreme Court.
But between the filing of this case in the Supreme Court and
today, Patanjali and its subsidiaries have issued
multiple ads claiming a range of products could cure anything
from cold to diabetes. The Supreme Court has now pulled
up Ramdevan Patanjali Co founder Bal Krishna for issuing such
ads, despite telling the Supreme Court that they would stop doing
so. The court has also said it would
consider strong action against the company and its founders
during the next hearing. It has also criticized the
Uttarakhand government for not taking action against the firm
for its advertisements. In today's episode, Doctor Lili
is in conversation with my colleague Alka Dukar about the
case and the changes he hopes to see.
He talks about why more people need to complain about such
products like those falsely marketed by Patanjali.
And he also talks about why the law to target wrongly sold
medication needs to be implemented far more seriously.
So to start with, the Supreme Court has pulled up Ramdev and
his deputy Bal Krishna for violating its order to stop
issuing misleading advertisements that raise
questions on modern medicine. How big is the victory for the
Indian Medical Association, upon whose petition the Supreme Court
order was issued? 1st we had objected the Coronel
tablet in the Corona episode when he publicly and a press
conference said that this is the tablet being used and this is
the best and he criticized all the allopathic doctors not only
criticize allopathic doctors but vaccines he criticized, oxygen
therapy criticized and all the medicines he criticized.
Subsequently we had objected and we had filed RTI in various
authorities. We had filed FIR, We had filed a
case in the Delhi High Court. But even then nothing occurred
and subsequently the height of it came somewhere in the month
of April, May, June 22, wherein he published a big
advertisement. How the, you know, allopathic
medicines are causing a lot of misconceptions and all those
things. So appearing in all the
newspapers across India, we filed immediately a very big
case in the Supreme Court directly.
Doctor Lily says his objection was to the constant targeting of
medical science. He says despite the filing of
the petition, neither the central government nor state
governments have undertaken any serious action to check these
ads by Patanjali, which make unproven claims and are not even
backed by any tests. See every system of medicines we
respect, whether it's allopathy, Ayurvedic, Kudani, Oopathy,
whatever it is. But one system person cannot
criticize on the other and say that this system is wrong.
But in such a lockdown and a serious business, somebody was
saying that this person died because oxygen was given to him
such a rash statement. And then once he said that
doctor, you know all those if you go and see the videos, that
was a very blad. Comments passed by this person
and that is how we thought that now is a high time.
Along with me there was a doctor KV Babu from Kerala also who was
filing various RTI, various complaints and then subsequently
we filed a case in the Supreme Court in the month of June 22
wherein all these proceedings are now last for two years.
We are following it but unfortunately government of the
health ministry, government, Indian National government,
whatever they said they even though the government from the
Uttaranchal were not in a position and there was no action
initiated. Prima facie on this
advertisement, neither any arrangements of checking or
cross checking the authenticity of the drugs were taken by the
respective governments. I could read from one of the
advertisements which say misconceptions spread by
Allopathy. Save yourself and the country
from the misconceptions spread by pharma and medical industry.
Let's make India disease free. This was the advertisement done
by Patanjali Wellness. Now, could you talk about the
unscientific claims such as this that were made by Baba Ramdev
and why they were dangerous? I will give you a simple example
of a diabetes because diabetes is a disease.
Rather I would say that this is a not only disease but it is
also a deformity in the body because of the aging process,
because of the insulin deficiency.
The second very important matter is that the persons family tree,
if you find that there will be some congenital hereditary of
the diabetes in the family. So when you cannot prevent the
diabetes which is there in your genes, how can you cure?
And we have never made any claims that we will cure
diabetes. We will cure blood pressure
because we know very well that this disease or a deformity
needs to be controlled. You take the medicine and keep
your diabetes under check, keep checking it periodically, maybe
one month to two months, and then you avoid the
complications. You avoid the complications of
the kidneys, vests, blood vessels and heart.
But here is a person who was saying that see we respect the
ancient charak Sushruta and those you know olden our
scientific methods. But that time whatever the
charak saita was there subsequently lot of follow up
action, lot of research and today we are in the evidence
based medicine. There is a evidence, there is
way to show that this is how the cure has taken place or a
control has taken place. But here is a person who was who
is not even a graduate. Forget the doctor.
He was a yoga guru and by the method of his teaching yoga he
has graduated into advising and medicine and blaming the other
paths. Other system of medicine which
is totally reckless kind of a behavior.
And that is how we thought that this needs to be stopped once
and for all and we need to do something on the because enough
bashing by the allopathic doctors had taken where all over
the world all our allopathic doctors were placed in control
and then how can we just keep lying.
And so everything was tracked properly advertisements and when
we submitted the in the Supreme Court what we did was all these
cases we documented and we have got a lot of patients.
We have seen that those who have left this our own diabetic
medicines, they were under control but they have gone into
the failure. They have gone into the heart
attack or they have gone into the diabetic uncontrolled and
complications of diabetes by switching to this Patanjali
medicines or Ayurvedic medicines so-called.
So definitely this need to be stopped because even during
corona time what we saw at the end if you recollect the 2nd
wave and the third wave, we had lot of patient and the death
rate was increased and that time he was the person who was
against vaccine, he was the person against the normal you
know allopathic medicines and they said that we don't know
anything why should the oxygen be given and all those stuff.
So doctor, the court is now questioning the Centre and the
state governments over inaction against these advertisements.
But two ministers, Harshavardhan and Nitin Gadkari, had endorsed
Patanjali's coronial. You had filed RTI application
back then in 2020, as you mentioned just now.
Could you tell us what it revealed?
We had asked two or three pertinent questions that whether
this AYUSH mantra Laya and WHO has authorized the sale of
coronal tablet, whether it was for the cure of coronal and what
documentations and we had asked for what evidence and what
trials has been done. Whenever somebody says that this
is a cure for any, for example any antibiotic or any fever
medicine, then we need to have the proper trials on the
patients and we are asked for the details.
So they said that there is no trial submitted on such kind of,
you know, cure of the corona by coronal tablet.
That time the Ayush Mantralaya told us that coronal tablet is
not for the Corona cure. In fact that is what it was said
that The Who has also certified. And then when we wrote to The
Who, then within two days they changed their stand.
They said that this is a supportive medicine.
So, drug and magic remedies Objectionable Advertisement Act
of 1954 prohibits advertisements for 54 diseases.
Did Divya Pharmacy, Patanjali's manufacturing unit, promote
products under such act? See, basically they took the
advantage and whenever possible they tried to say that these are
supportive medicines and they changed this to supportive
medicine when they realized that the cure is not possible and it
was only timely gimmick of selling the medicines by calling
the others that they are you're not working and we are going to
give cure. And at the same time when we
they are saying that we are going to give cure but the cure
was not seen nobody, we saw that the patient has leaving hell and
heartily after the cure of the disease and he has left all the
medicines. There is nothing like that.
So this was all false promises. They were doing it to the
patients. Do you think that the damage has
already been done where misleading claims are normalized
in the minds of Indians? Do you also think all of this is
coming too late? It is coming, not very late, but
it is coming definitely late. We should have had this much
earlier today. The Supreme Court has taken a
very strong action and we need to understand that for that
matter anybody who is giving false claims, false gimmicks and
playing the around the health of the person which is a definitely
a very important issue here. I must say that the health is
divided into state and the center authorities and then what
happens is the something is left to the state to take action.
Sometimes it is left to the center to take action And by
this division many times the person finds a loopholes and
that is what these loopholes have come up and under the
disguise of you know supporting and that nobody reads those fine
prints. They say that you have to take
this medicine, but nobody says that this is you have to take
medicine for lifetime. Whereas allopathic say yes, this
medicines diabetic medicine, you need to take it for lifetime.
They say that no, within 3-4 months your diabetes will be
cured, your blood pressure will be cured, which is again a false
claim. And that need to be causing a
very cautious to every patient who is switching over from this.
And we have seen the side effects of switching over today
when we are talking about the medicines.
All the medicines need to be an evidence based format.
We need to have a proper guidelines, We need to have a
proper trials and all those things.
Every medicine has to follow it. There is nothing wrong.
But then here they have not followed it, they have not
certified it. Their machinery or the
government should be set up properly to investigate this, so
at least future damage will be stopped.
Do you think that side effects of these medicines which they
are promoting through such misleading advertisements are
not mentioned in these advertisements?
Or what is that they don't mention about their products in
these advertisements? They don't mention that there
are side effects of these products at all.
If you find the Pharmacopia of our allopathic Pharmacopia which
is based on the similar to what we have got British Pharmacopia
or American Pharmacopia and there where every medicine
whether it's a paracetamol or whether it's a painkiller or a
blood pressure, some side effects you will find at the
mention. But here you don't find it and
unfortunately what happens is this is this aortic medicines,
they have lot of asthmas they call it.
And then ultimately what at the end of the day what you're going
is going to get it in a tablet is a need to be very well
properly certified, proper research has to be done and we
have seen that over dosage of certain tablets also is causing
problem and we need to have the heavy metal poisoning.
We have got certain cases but patients are not coming forward
to report or you know make a complaint.
The patient doesn't go to the Supreme Court, they just stop
the medicine and switch over to the allopathic again.
But till that time some damage is done and some adverse effects
have occurred which we come to know.
But even if we tell the patients, patients are not
interested to go and fight because this is see fighting in
a legal battle is a very lengthy, you know, very time
consuming. And ultimately patients are not
that well can say oriented and they don't have the
infrastructure or they don't have a unity or a consumer of
that particular nature to fight in such a big case in the
Supreme Court. Many may accuse you of just
targeting Ayurveda. What is your response to that?
So my response to is very clear. We are not targeting anyone
particular pharmacy or anything like that, but we are targeting.
First of all, stop criticizing the allopathic doctors.
Suppose you have a allopathic Ayurvedic.
You do research, you show the evidence and you convince the
patient that it is getting cured.
At the same time you must know that what is the side effects
and what how, what stage? By diverting the patients from
allopathy to Ayurvedic, which is a very big concern and which is
what is our strong first objection and by using the
modern media, advertisement, newspaper or TV's and all those
things under the guise of yoga. Yoga is a different therapy,
nothing to do with that. So why the person from the yoga
background go into the Ayurvedic and promote the Ayurvedic
medicine and telling that the IT should they are the replacement
for the allopathic misconception which is totally wrong, which is
not acceptable to us. Till February 2024 this year,
357 brands got notices for violating the law.
The 1954 Act on Making Claims in Advertisements.
But beyond issuing notices, what should happen and what isn't
happening? So the Parliament should take
care of this. They should have a parliamentary
committee like normally wherever whenever the any new act is
amended or new act is proposed, they have a parliamentary
commentary to study that all the researchers from various fields
should come together, that such a committee should be formed and
then they should really do the work.
Second thing what Supreme Court can do at the moment is that any
false advertising claims are there then they should withdraw
that drug unless proved otherwise that it is a favorable
medicine and other unless the evidence is created and shown.
Till that time the dress or marketing of that particular
drug need to be stopped. Otherwise there is no point
because already the people have known to that and person may not
advertise but he will keep selling the drugs to the
patient. So the person need to be
punished. At the same time the drug need
to be withdrawn from the market till the time the proper
evidence is received from the company or the OR the committee
for that matter. We have the various drug
controller committee. So it's similarly in Ayurveda
and Humayapathi also they should establish the evidence and
medicines to that effect to be used.
Then only we can be sure that proper justice will be done.
So doctor, how do you view the fact that many who debunk
medical science and tell others to stay away from it are happy
to take hospital treatment when they need it?
Like more recently we have seen Jaggi Vasudev, who too makes fun
of modern medicine, was admitted to a hospital and underwent a
surgery. Today's is the fashion that, you
know, people criticize. But today I can assure you that
we are not only treating the end disease is far better than what
we were treating 50 years back, number one.
Number two, we are in the position of not only prevention
but early diagnosis. Today we have an artificial
intelligence. We can diagnose any cancer to
the minor level much earlier. At the same time, we can detect
early diabetes. We can detect and we can prevent
the cardiac stenting. We can prevent the stenting into
the peripheral arteries much, much earlier than anybody.
And we are in a far better knowledge and much placed for
this effect. So it is just a fashion that we
are saying it, but modern medicine and the intelligence
and I would say the research going on is to the great extent.
So definitely at the end you will have to use the modern
medicine or you know, patient because we have seen the results
of it. Today's episode was produced by
Jayaraj. Singh and.
Sahil Gupta for a daily spotlight on people, ideas and
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