Indian Medicines - Are they just 'Alternative Medicines'?
Saturday's (July 9, 2005) Hindu carried a report on Indian medicines. The report was about the inauguration of a national level seminar on 'modern vistas in standardisation and good manufacturing practices of Indian system of medicine drugs.'
It talks about the lack of standardisation in the Ayurvedha/ Siddha drugs. But, what is surprising is that these comments were made by Union AYUSH secretary, Uma Pillai (AYUSH stands for Ayurvedha, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy and comes under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare as Department of AYUSH). This probably indicates that the Ministry is not planning to introduce measures to standardise the Indian system of medicines, though the official site claims as one of the objectives to "evolve Pharmacopoeial standards for Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy drugs." Without the government playing the larger role in regulating & monitoring agency, it would not be possible for a large number of medical practitioners (significant number of medical practitioners even prepare the drugs on their own) and drug companies to come together and formulating the standards in each of these systems. The commercial interests and the fear of revealing the composition of drugs to competitors are enough reasons to prevent any meaningful standardisation initiatives.
The Ministry should rather work towards setting up a high-powered committee (one each for each system of medicine), with members from renowned practitioners, academicians, researchers from drug manufacturers and other experts towards the standardisation of drugs. This committee can approach the task in phases (considering the number of drugs to be standardised) and in a time-bound manner for each phase. The recommendations of this committee should be made binding on all drug manufacturers and practitioners. It is also essential to promote research and development of new drugs in each of these systems and ministry should think of giving research grants to colleges and renowned practitioners for this purpose. At the same time, it should also set up a separate board for these systems on the lines of US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), US and Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), India.
Incidentally, a recent report in Rediff is about the Health ministry's initiative to revamp the Indian drug regulatory structure and make it on par with FDA for quality control of drugs.
But, to me there is another issue with Indian medicinal systems. The focus has always been on the drug based treatment. The hidden message is that we failed to catch up with the modern developments in medicines, such as surgeries, electro medical instruments (ECG, EEG etc.), Lasers and so on. It is sheer irony that it was Sushruta, who performed the world's first surgery dating back to 2nd century BC. It is a puzzle to learn that the BAMS course, which is the basic course for studying Ayurvedha doesn't teach anything about the modern treatments including surgeries. Why shouldn't the eminent academicians and experts join together and work towards integrating the modern medical treatments with Indian systems. Without this integration and alignment with modern techniques, Ayurvedha, Siddha etc. will be continued to be referred as "alternate systems," which is grossly unfair.
Hope, Ministry of Health and Dept. of AYUSH soon wakes up from its sleep and take steps to revive the Indian systems.
Comments from experts are welcome!
PS:
While reading articles for this blog, I came across this interesting slide, thanks to Google. It raises question about how the surgical methods completely disappeared from Ayurvedha after 5-6 centuries AD. It is said that Sushruta Samhita describes over 120 surgical instruments and 300 surgical procedures and 8 different categories of human surgery. any scholarly insights?
It talks about the lack of standardisation in the Ayurvedha/ Siddha drugs. But, what is surprising is that these comments were made by Union AYUSH secretary, Uma Pillai (AYUSH stands for Ayurvedha, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy and comes under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare as Department of AYUSH). This probably indicates that the Ministry is not planning to introduce measures to standardise the Indian system of medicines, though the official site claims as one of the objectives to "evolve Pharmacopoeial standards for Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy drugs." Without the government playing the larger role in regulating & monitoring agency, it would not be possible for a large number of medical practitioners (significant number of medical practitioners even prepare the drugs on their own) and drug companies to come together and formulating the standards in each of these systems. The commercial interests and the fear of revealing the composition of drugs to competitors are enough reasons to prevent any meaningful standardisation initiatives.
The Ministry should rather work towards setting up a high-powered committee (one each for each system of medicine), with members from renowned practitioners, academicians, researchers from drug manufacturers and other experts towards the standardisation of drugs. This committee can approach the task in phases (considering the number of drugs to be standardised) and in a time-bound manner for each phase. The recommendations of this committee should be made binding on all drug manufacturers and practitioners. It is also essential to promote research and development of new drugs in each of these systems and ministry should think of giving research grants to colleges and renowned practitioners for this purpose. At the same time, it should also set up a separate board for these systems on the lines of US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), US and Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), India.
Incidentally, a recent report in Rediff is about the Health ministry's initiative to revamp the Indian drug regulatory structure and make it on par with FDA for quality control of drugs.
But, to me there is another issue with Indian medicinal systems. The focus has always been on the drug based treatment. The hidden message is that we failed to catch up with the modern developments in medicines, such as surgeries, electro medical instruments (ECG, EEG etc.), Lasers and so on. It is sheer irony that it was Sushruta, who performed the world's first surgery dating back to 2nd century BC. It is a puzzle to learn that the BAMS course, which is the basic course for studying Ayurvedha doesn't teach anything about the modern treatments including surgeries. Why shouldn't the eminent academicians and experts join together and work towards integrating the modern medical treatments with Indian systems. Without this integration and alignment with modern techniques, Ayurvedha, Siddha etc. will be continued to be referred as "alternate systems," which is grossly unfair.
Hope, Ministry of Health and Dept. of AYUSH soon wakes up from its sleep and take steps to revive the Indian systems.
Comments from experts are welcome!
PS:
While reading articles for this blog, I came across this interesting slide, thanks to Google. It raises question about how the surgical methods completely disappeared from Ayurvedha after 5-6 centuries AD. It is said that Sushruta Samhita describes over 120 surgical instruments and 300 surgical procedures and 8 different categories of human surgery. any scholarly insights?
posted by Baskaran Sankaran @ 07:30
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