Key Points :
- The Indian Medical Association on Thursday questioned the release of the AYUSH protocol for the prevention and treatment on Covid-19 in mild or asymptomatic cases.
- In a press release, The IMA National president Rajan Sharma and secretary general R.V. Asokan posed five questions to the minister demanding he come clean on them.
- The AYUSH protocol was released just two days ago listing Ayurvedic practices, some dietary measures and Yoga as the treatment for asymptomatic and mild Covid-19 cases as well as the prevention of the disease.
The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Thursday questioned Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan’s advocacy of alternative medicines and yoga for the treatment for Covid. The IMA questioned the scientific basis of these protocols just two days after the Minister promoted the protocol released by the AYUSH ministry.
The Minister on Tuesday released the protocol for Covid prevention and treating of asymptomatic patients as well as patients with mild cases using Ayurveda, Yoga and dietary measures. The Protocol recommended consuming turmeric milk, ashwagandha, guduchi and Ayush 64 tablets in order to prevent Covid or treat mild or asymptomatic cases. Yoga, adequate sleep as well as moderate exercise were also prescribed as part of the protocol.
The IMA National president Rajan Sharma and secretary general R.V. Asokan issued a press release posing five questions to the Health minister seeking answers.
Some of these questions were ‘How many of his ministerial colleagues have so far got treated under AYUSH protocols?’; and ‘What is stopping him from handing over Covid care and control to the AYUSH ministry?’
The IMA demanded that the minister come clean on these questions. “If not, he is inflicting a fraud on the nation and gullible patients by calling placebos as drugs,” it added. The IMA has asked the health minister “to give reproducibility of a claim elsewhere in non-conflict situations and double blind control studies”.
A double-blind study is a randomized clinical trial in which the person does not know if they are receiving the experimental treatment, a standard treatment or a placebo.
A placebo is a substance that has no therapeutic effect and can be called a dummy pill.
