Madras High Court’s observation made on Thursday that vested interests were acting against the development of Siddha branch of medicine as it was not being given due recognition substantiates the doubts expressed by India’s medical warriors Prof B M Hegde and Dr C V Krishnaswami.
Justices N Kirubakaran and V N Velumani while hearing a habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of Thiruthanikachalam, a Siddha practitioner, who was arrested under the Goondas Act for circulating a video accusing the Tamil Nadu Government of not having done anything to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, said that vested interests were acting against the development and promotion of Siddha.
The judges said in their interim order that both the Union Government and the State Government were not doing enough to make use of Siddha branch of medicine in the country.
They also said that Siddha doctors were curing many Covid-19 patients, a fact which has been ignored by the governments.
Thiruthanikachalam’s disappointment over the indifference shown by the Government towards testing the formulation prepared by him to cure Covid-19 pandemic resulted in his outburst and the video.
Prof Hegde and Dr Krishnaswamy (both modern medicine doctors with post graduate degrees from reputed medical universities in the world) have been highly critical of the Government’s approach to the pandemic which has resulted in the shooting up of the number of coronavirus patients in the country and the resultant fatalities.
Dr Hegde, a former vice chancellor of Manipal University and a cardiologist of international repute has been saying that Ayurveda has the answer to Covid-19. Dr Krishnaswamy can vouch for the number of Covid-19 patients cured by Ayurveda medicine.
Now that the Government of India itself making it known that a covid vaccine would be available only after one year, Dr Krishnaswamy said it was time for testing the efficacy of the Ayurvedic medicine. “No adverse drug reaction has been caused on heart and liver because of Ayurvedic medicine and this is what we have found and studied. The Government should seriously consider permitting the Ayurvedic doctors to prescribe the medicine developed by them for countering Covid-19. It is time we stopped the servility to modern medicine,” said Dr Krishnaswamy.
In Tamil Nadu, Dr Krishnakumar of Coimbatore Ayurveda Pharmacy and Dr PLT Girija, leading Ayurvedic physicians, have been prescribing ayurvedic medicine to persons afflicted with covid-19, some with even co-morbidity, and curing them successfully. Dr Girija is of the view that Adverse Drug Reaction is alien to the Ayurvedic system of treatment. “A drug is no more a drug if it causes any adverse reaction,” the doctor told The Pioneer.