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Herbs and
hysteria
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI - As ayurveda, India's ancient
herbal system of longevity and health, revives in
popularity, it is coming under fire from
practitioners of modern allopathic medicine who
accuse it of quackery and its preparations of
being loaded with toxic metals and even steroids.
"Increasingly I have my patients asking me
if it is safe to take the ayurvedic preparations I
prescribe them," Sujath Kumar, chief physician of
India's well-known Santhigiri Ashram chain of
ayurvedic clinics, said.
Kumar said he
explains that the Santhigiri Ashram runs its own
herbariums and processes its own medicines
according to ancient texts, and there is little
chance of their getting contaminated with heavy
metals or spiked with steroids.
There may
be people who try to make a fast buck by
adulterating ayurvedic medicines or compromise on
processing standards, but, he noted, that is
happening even with products in allopathic or
conventional medicine. Allopathy generally
involves a focus on the treatment of symptoms and
excludes holistic, non-medical, non-surgical
treatments.
"What troubles me is that the
efficacy of ayurvedic medicines depends so much on
the faith of patients in the medicines, and the
last thing the system needs is adverse propaganda
by people who understand nothing of this ancient
science," Kumar said.
Ayurveda, developed
more than 5,000 years ago, uses herbs, medicated
oils and massage to stimulate the body's natural
defense mechanisms to overcome ailments, allergies
and conditions after the physician first assesses
the patient's body type. Millions of people swear
by the system in India and elsewhere.
But
doubts have been spreading among users of
ayurvedic medicines since the December 14 issue of
the Journal of the American Medical Association
(JAMA) carried the results of study saying that
20% of packaged ayurvedic products sold in the
United States contained traces of lead, mercury
and arsenic at levels that could be toxic.
In the US, ayurvedic products are sold as
dietary supplements, which do not require proof of
safety or efficacy. Since 1978, at least 55 cases
of heavy metal intoxication associated with
ayurvedic products consumed by adults and children
have been reported in the US and other countries,
Robert Saper of the Harvard Medical School and his
fellow doctors said in the JAMA paper.
They analyzed 70 ayurvedic products
available from shops in the Boston area, in the
northeast US, and found that 14 of them contained
lead, mercury or arsenic. If the manufacturer's
recommended dose was consumed, it would greatly
exceed permissible levels, according to the
researchers.
As news of the Boston study
spread to India, it began to sow the seeds of
doubt among hundreds of thousands of users who
prefer ayurvedic treatments over allopathic, not
only because they are known to work but also
because they are cheaper.
As the
controversy grew, it created a furor in India's
parliament, so much so that Kapil Sibal, minister
for science and technology, made a solemn denial
that ayurvedic medicines contained toxic
substances and suggested that in all probability
the Boston studies were "motivated" by other
interests.
Sibal said he found it curious
that the reports were coming out at a time when
ayurveda was slowly gaining popularity in the US,
while allopathic treatments were becoming steadily
unaffordable, especially for millions of people
without medical insurance.
Indeed, the
JAMA study itself noted that at least 750,000
adults in the US were known to use ayurvedic
medicines, all paying for them out of pocket since
ayurveda is not licensed for practice in that
country.
According to Dr Krishan Kumar
Aggarwal, a well-know cardiologist and president
of the Delhi Medical Association, unlike Chinese
medicine, which is licensed, ayurveda has not been
promoted by any significant lobby and it is only
in recent times that groups such as the American
Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, with
more than 50,000 members, have decided to take up
the issue.
"About the only promotion that
has been happening is the result of efforts by
charismatic personalities like Deepak Chopra,
author of Ageless Body, Timeless Mind and
other books that promote ayurvedic principles,"
Aggarwal said.
A medical doctor who
trained at the Lahey Clinic in Boston and at the
University of Virginia Hospital, Chopra is
critical of the fact that the medical community in
the US does not accept ayurvedic medicine. His own
Chopra Center for Well Being is not a licensed
medical care facility but is listed as
"experimental".
Aggarwal, who initially
trained in pharmacology, said it was unfair of
allopathic doctors to "scare" people away from
ayurvedic remedies, especially when many
allopathic drugs had severe side-effects, which
are often never properly explained.
By
attacking ayurveda, many valuable cures for
diseases or conditions that were considered
intractable in modern medicine were being denied
to patients who might benefit from them, whether
in India, the US or elsewhere, Aggarwal said.
Added Sujath Kumar, "It is bad enough that
many herbs that go into the manufacture of
ayurvedic drugs are now in short supply or are
being targeted by biopirates seeking to isolate
the active principles and make tidy profits out of
them, but actively denigrating ayurveda is doing a
great disservice to humanity."
(Inter
Press Service) |
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