IMA slams Ramdev, writes to PM demanding action against his ‘misinformation campaign’
Patanjali CEO Acharya Balkrishna says IMA officials lack understanding of ayurvedic medicines and that Patanjali would be ‘happy to extend relevant training facilities to them’.
Patanjali CEO Acharya Balkrishna has hit out at the Indian Medical Association (IMA) for endorsing “health-friendly” wall paints and LED bulbs while targeting Ayurveda for lacking scientific evidence.
“They have been continuously targeting us and called ayurvedic therapies pseudoscientific. However, I want to question their basis for endorsing wall paint that claims to kill 99 per cent bacteria, reduce viral transmission, and increase immunity. The paint also claimed to reduce the possibility of respiratory infections and skin sensitisation. Isn’t that pseudoscience?” Balkrishna told ThePrint.
Top officials of the IMA, in their letter, said the “misinformation campaign” started by Ramdev had to be stopped” and “appropriate action needs to be taken against individuals propagating fear about vaccination”.
The IMA has pointed to two viral videos, in which Patanjali owner Ramdev, is seen claiming that 10,000 doctors had died despite taking both doses of the vaccine and lakhs had died due to allopathic medicine, calling it a “stupid science”.
“Under section 6:1:1, a physician shall not give to any person, whether for compensation or otherwise, any approval, recommendation, endorsement, certificate, report or statement with respect of any drug, medicine, with his name, signature, or photograph in any form or manner of advertising through any mode nor shall he boast of cases, operations, cures or remedies or permit the publication of report thereof through any mode,” the IMA specified.
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The tussle between Patanjali and the IMA had intensified last month when Balkrishna threw an open challenge to the medical body for an open discussion on the “science behind Coronil”. In the same month, Coronil tablets were upgraded as “supportive” treatment for Covid-19 by the Narendra Modi government.
IMA had accepted the challenge.
Addressing Patanjali’s attack on brand endorsements by IMA, the lobby’s national president Dr J.A. Jayalal told ThePrint, “IMA is not endorsing any product, rather we only promote new technologies or new inventions in science.”
Jayalal also said that IMA is a 92-year-old organisation and Balkrishna isn’t someone to whom the medical body would want to take certification from.
