From India's largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the Times of India podcast. Whether it was a cholesterol or whether it was a fatty liver, whether it was a diabetes, pressure, arthritis, he said. That there is a cure for all these things in the Ayurvedic medicine and allopathy doesn't have anything wherein we found that many patients have left the proper allopathic medicines and gone and switched over.
That's Doctor Jayesh Leli, who is the honorary secretary general of the Indian Medical Association. He's also the man who started a legal battle against yoga guru and Patanjali Co founder Ramdev, due to which the yoga guru has had to apologize before the Supreme Court. Doctor Lilly achieved widespread fame in 2021 during the height of the 2nd wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, when he tore into Ramdev during a live television debate.
At the time Doctor Lilly was questioning the launch of Patanjalis product called Coronel, which the company claimed cured COVID-19. The move earned Dr. Lily widespread support on social media, but it didn't stop the companies promotion of the so-called drug in any way. The product had been launched by Ramdev in the presence of Union ministers Harsh Vardhan and Nitin Gutkari just days earlier. There's no evidence of how many people consumed this product
thinking it would protect them. But then we also don't know how many people died during the height of the 2nd wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Doctor Lilly says it was the launch of this product which prompted the Indian Medical Association to go to the Supreme Court. But between the filing of this case in the Supreme Court and today, Patanjali and its subsidiaries have issued multiple ads claiming a range of products could cure anything
from cold to diabetes. The Supreme Court has now pulled up Ramdevan Patanjali Co founder Bal Krishna for issuing such ads, despite telling the Supreme Court that they would stop doing so. The court has also said it would consider strong action against the company and its founders during the next hearing. It has also criticized the Uttarakhand government for not taking action against the firm
for its advertisements. In today's episode, Doctor Lili is in conversation with my colleague Alka Dukar about the case and the changes he hopes to see. He talks about why more people need to complain about such products like those falsely marketed by Patanjali. And he also talks about why the law to target wrongly sold medication needs to be implemented far more seriously.
So to start with, the Supreme Court has pulled up Ramdev and his deputy Bal Krishna for violating its order to stop issuing misleading advertisements that raise questions on modern medicine. How big is the victory for the Indian Medical Association, upon whose petition the Supreme Court
order was issued? 1st we had objected the Coronel tablet in the Corona episode when he publicly and a press conference said that this is the tablet being used and this is the best and he criticized all the allopathic doctors not only criticize allopathic doctors but vaccines he criticized, oxygen therapy criticized and all the medicines he criticized. Subsequently we had objected and we had filed RTI in various
authorities. We had filed FIR, We had filed a case in the Delhi High Court. But even then nothing occurred and subsequently the height of it came somewhere in the month of April, May, June 22, wherein he published a big advertisement. How the, you know, allopathic medicines are causing a lot of misconceptions and all those things. So appearing in all the newspapers across India, we filed immediately a very big case in the Supreme Court directly.
Doctor Lily says his objection was to the constant targeting of medical science. He says despite the filing of the petition, neither the central government nor state governments have undertaken any serious action to check these ads by Patanjali, which make unproven claims and are not even
backed by any tests. See every system of medicines we respect, whether it's allopathy, Ayurvedic, Kudani, Oopathy, whatever it is. But one system person cannot criticize on the other and say that this system is wrong. But in such a lockdown and a serious business, somebody was saying that this person died because oxygen was given to him such a rash statement. And then once he said that doctor, you know all those if you go and see the videos, that
was a very blad. Comments passed by this person and that is how we thought that now is a high time. Along with me there was a doctor KV Babu from Kerala also who was filing various RTI, various complaints and then subsequently we filed a case in the Supreme Court in the month of June 22 wherein all these proceedings are now last for two years.
We are following it but unfortunately government of the health ministry, government, Indian National government, whatever they said they even though the government from the Uttaranchal were not in a position and there was no action initiated. Prima facie on this advertisement, neither any arrangements of checking or cross checking the authenticity of the drugs were taken by the
respective governments. I could read from one of the advertisements which say misconceptions spread by Allopathy. Save yourself and the country from the misconceptions spread by pharma and medical industry. Let's make India disease free. This was the advertisement done by Patanjali Wellness. Now, could you talk about the unscientific claims such as this that were made by Baba Ramdev and why they were dangerous? I will give you a simple example of a diabetes because diabetes is a disease.
Rather I would say that this is a not only disease but it is also a deformity in the body because of the aging process, because of the insulin deficiency. The second very important matter is that the persons family tree, if you find that there will be some congenital hereditary of the diabetes in the family. So when you cannot prevent the diabetes which is there in your genes, how can you cure? And we have never made any claims that we will cure
diabetes. We will cure blood pressure because we know very well that this disease or a deformity needs to be controlled. You take the medicine and keep your diabetes under check, keep checking it periodically, maybe one month to two months, and then you avoid the complications. You avoid the complications of the kidneys, vests, blood vessels and heart. But here is a person who was saying that see we respect the ancient charak Sushruta and those you know olden our
scientific methods. But that time whatever the charak saita was there subsequently lot of follow up action, lot of research and today we are in the evidence based medicine. There is a evidence, there is way to show that this is how the cure has taken place or a control has taken place. But here is a person who was who is not even a graduate. Forget the doctor. He was a yoga guru and by the method of his teaching yoga he has graduated into advising and medicine and blaming the other
paths. Other system of medicine which is totally reckless kind of a behavior. And that is how we thought that this needs to be stopped once and for all and we need to do something on the because enough bashing by the allopathic doctors had taken where all over the world all our allopathic doctors were placed in control and then how can we just keep lying.
And so everything was tracked properly advertisements and when we submitted the in the Supreme Court what we did was all these cases we documented and we have got a lot of patients. We have seen that those who have left this our own diabetic medicines, they were under control but they have gone into
the failure. They have gone into the heart attack or they have gone into the diabetic uncontrolled and complications of diabetes by switching to this Patanjali medicines or Ayurvedic medicines so-called.
So definitely this need to be stopped because even during corona time what we saw at the end if you recollect the 2nd wave and the third wave, we had lot of patient and the death rate was increased and that time he was the person who was against vaccine, he was the person against the normal you know allopathic medicines and they said that we don't know anything why should the oxygen be given and all those stuff.
So doctor, the court is now questioning the Centre and the state governments over inaction against these advertisements. But two ministers, Harshavardhan and Nitin Gadkari, had endorsed Patanjali's coronial. You had filed RTI application back then in 2020, as you mentioned just now. Could you tell us what it revealed?
We had asked two or three pertinent questions that whether this AYUSH mantra Laya and WHO has authorized the sale of coronal tablet, whether it was for the cure of coronal and what documentations and we had asked for what evidence and what trials has been done. Whenever somebody says that this is a cure for any, for example any antibiotic or any fever medicine, then we need to have the proper trials on the patients and we are asked for the details.
So they said that there is no trial submitted on such kind of, you know, cure of the corona by coronal tablet. That time the Ayush Mantralaya told us that coronal tablet is not for the Corona cure. In fact that is what it was said that The Who has also certified. And then when we wrote to The Who, then within two days they changed their stand. They said that this is a supportive medicine.
So, drug and magic remedies Objectionable Advertisement Act of 1954 prohibits advertisements for 54 diseases. Did Divya Pharmacy, Patanjali's manufacturing unit, promote
products under such act? See, basically they took the advantage and whenever possible they tried to say that these are supportive medicines and they changed this to supportive medicine when they realized that the cure is not possible and it was only timely gimmick of selling the medicines by calling the others that they are you're not working and we are going to
give cure. And at the same time when we they are saying that we are going to give cure but the cure was not seen nobody, we saw that the patient has leaving hell and heartily after the cure of the disease and he has left all the medicines. There is nothing like that. So this was all false promises. They were doing it to the patients. Do you think that the damage has already been done where misleading claims are normalized in the minds of Indians? Do you also think all of this is
coming too late? It is coming, not very late, but it is coming definitely late. We should have had this much earlier today. The Supreme Court has taken a very strong action and we need to understand that for that matter anybody who is giving false claims, false gimmicks and playing the around the health of the person which is a definitely
a very important issue here. I must say that the health is divided into state and the center authorities and then what happens is the something is left to the state to take action. Sometimes it is left to the center to take action And by this division many times the person finds a loopholes and that is what these loopholes have come up and under the disguise of you know supporting and that nobody reads those fine
prints. They say that you have to take this medicine, but nobody says that this is you have to take medicine for lifetime. Whereas allopathic say yes, this medicines diabetic medicine, you need to take it for lifetime. They say that no, within 3-4 months your diabetes will be cured, your blood pressure will be cured, which is again a false claim. And that need to be causing a very cautious to every patient who is switching over from this.
And we have seen the side effects of switching over today when we are talking about the medicines. All the medicines need to be an evidence based format. We need to have a proper guidelines, We need to have a proper trials and all those things. Every medicine has to follow it. There is nothing wrong.
But then here they have not followed it, they have not certified it. Their machinery or the government should be set up properly to investigate this, so at least future damage will be stopped. Do you think that side effects of these medicines which they are promoting through such misleading advertisements are not mentioned in these advertisements? Or what is that they don't mention about their products in
these advertisements? They don't mention that there are side effects of these products at all. If you find the Pharmacopia of our allopathic Pharmacopia which is based on the similar to what we have got British Pharmacopia or American Pharmacopia and there where every medicine whether it's a paracetamol or whether it's a painkiller or a blood pressure, some side effects you will find at the
mention. But here you don't find it and unfortunately what happens is this is this aortic medicines, they have lot of asthmas they call it. And then ultimately what at the end of the day what you're going is going to get it in a tablet is a need to be very well properly certified, proper research has to be done and we have seen that over dosage of certain tablets also is causing problem and we need to have the heavy metal poisoning.
We have got certain cases but patients are not coming forward to report or you know make a complaint. The patient doesn't go to the Supreme Court, they just stop the medicine and switch over to the allopathic again. But till that time some damage is done and some adverse effects have occurred which we come to know. But even if we tell the patients, patients are not interested to go and fight because this is see fighting in a legal battle is a very lengthy, you know, very time
consuming. And ultimately patients are not that well can say oriented and they don't have the infrastructure or they don't have a unity or a consumer of that particular nature to fight in such a big case in the Supreme Court. Many may accuse you of just targeting Ayurveda. What is your response to that? So my response to is very clear. We are not targeting anyone particular pharmacy or anything like that, but we are targeting. First of all, stop criticizing the allopathic doctors.
Suppose you have a allopathic Ayurvedic. You do research, you show the evidence and you convince the patient that it is getting cured. At the same time you must know that what is the side effects and what how, what stage? By diverting the patients from allopathy to Ayurvedic, which is a very big concern and which is what is our strong first objection and by using the modern media, advertisement, newspaper or TV's and all those things under the guise of yoga. Yoga is a different therapy,
nothing to do with that. So why the person from the yoga background go into the Ayurvedic and promote the Ayurvedic medicine and telling that the IT should they are the replacement for the allopathic misconception which is totally wrong, which is not acceptable to us. Till February 2024 this year, 357 brands got notices for violating the law. The 1954 Act on Making Claims in Advertisements. But beyond issuing notices, what should happen and what isn't happening? So the Parliament should take
care of this. They should have a parliamentary committee like normally wherever whenever the any new act is amended or new act is proposed, they have a parliamentary commentary to study that all the researchers from various fields should come together, that such a committee should be formed and then they should really do the work.
Second thing what Supreme Court can do at the moment is that any false advertising claims are there then they should withdraw that drug unless proved otherwise that it is a favorable medicine and other unless the evidence is created and shown. Till that time the dress or marketing of that particular drug need to be stopped. Otherwise there is no point because already the people have known to that and person may not advertise but he will keep selling the drugs to the
patient. So the person need to be punished. At the same time the drug need to be withdrawn from the market till the time the proper evidence is received from the company or the OR the committee for that matter. We have the various drug controller committee. So it's similarly in Ayurveda and Humayapathi also they should establish the evidence and medicines to that effect to be used. Then only we can be sure that proper justice will be done.
So doctor, how do you view the fact that many who debunk medical science and tell others to stay away from it are happy to take hospital treatment when they need it? Like more recently we have seen Jaggi Vasudev, who too makes fun of modern medicine, was admitted to a hospital and underwent a surgery. Today's is the fashion that, you
know, people criticize. But today I can assure you that we are not only treating the end disease is far better than what we were treating 50 years back, number one. Number two, we are in the position of not only prevention but early diagnosis. Today we have an artificial intelligence. We can diagnose any cancer to the minor level much earlier. At the same time, we can detect early diabetes. We can detect and we can prevent
the cardiac stenting. We can prevent the stenting into the peripheral arteries much, much earlier than anybody. And we are in a far better knowledge and much placed for this effect. So it is just a fashion that we are saying it, but modern medicine and the intelligence and I would say the research going on is to the great extent.
So definitely at the end you will have to use the modern medicine or you know, patient because we have seen the results of it. Today's episode was produced by Jayaraj. Singh and. Sahil Gupta for a daily spotlight on people, ideas and stories that matter, subscribe to us. We're available on TOI plus, Spotify, Apple, Google Podcasts, and all other platforms of your choice. For any new steps, e-mail us at TOI podcast at Timesinternet dot in.