Background:
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During the Pandemic, Ayurveda based self-medication was promoted. But no attempt was made to educate people with the correct ingredients like Giloy or Dalcheeni.
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Many Ayurveda physicians claimed successful treatment of Covid, but none were recorded and researched. The coordination between ICMR and AYUSH could have helped in better management of the pandemic.
Why the Ayurveda system is being questioned?
A group of scientists has started a social media campaign calling all AYUSH systems “pseudoscience”. This is because of:
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Finding unwarranted constituents like antibiotics, heavy metals in many of the AYUSH products.
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Unscientific and outdated content in the textbooks of AYUSH graduate programmes.
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Various cases where adverse impacts were visible after exposure to AYUSH interventions.
What should the policymakers/academicians do?
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Introspect all the flaws carefully and do the required changes.
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Adoption of uniform protocols for diagnosis and interventions of various diseases.
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Conduct longitudinal observation studies involving around 20 different clinical conditions that AYUSH is confident of treating to establish the efficacy of AYUSH medicines and systems.
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Establish a regulatory mechanism to check that classical formulations do not contain harmful substances like heavy metals before they are made available in markets.