India
Medical association head questions Ramdev's medicines
By IANS
Apr 18, 2006 - 7:25:00 AM

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) president-designate has questioned popular yoga guru Baba Ramdev's ayurveda medicines, describing them as "magic concoctions" and demanded that they be tested.

IMA president-elect Ajay Kumar said: "Are his (Ramdev's) magic concoctions put on the three phases of test trials mandatory before being marketed so widely and claimed to be alternative (not complementary) to the allopathic medicines?"

In an article published in the latest IMA journal, Kumar also voiced unhappiness over Ramdev's criticism of medical practitioners and allopathic medicines. Kumar urged doctors to prevent people like Ramdev from maligning the image of the medical profession.

Ramdev had during a yoga camp here last month reportedly alleged that medical practitioners were exploiting people for money and conducting unnecessary tests to make money.

Kumar, who was felicitated by the Bihar Chambers of Commerce Sunday, voiced displeasure about Ramdev's remarks against him during the yoga camp.

The yoga guru had called Kumar "sirfira" (mentally disturbed) for challenging him to prove scientifically his claims of healing chronic diseases by his concoctions of herbs and heavy metals.

Speaking at the function, Kumar remarked that none of his colleagues had protested Ramdev's remarks.

"Is it not shameful that when the national president-elect of the IMA is ridiculed, association members remain silent?" Kumar said.

Challenging Ramdev to prove that his ayurveda medicines had any scientific basis, Kumar described him as a successful swami-turned-businessman-cum-drug manufacturer.

"Ramdev Baba seems to be a very good businessman who has marketed yoga, pranayam (a form of yoga) and his magic concoctions very successfully," Kumar said.

Kumar maintained there was no dispute over the benefits of yoga for health, but "Ramdev has turned this classical art into pop music". "Unfortunately he has taken the science of rejuvenation a little too far," he said.

"Ramdev's claim of treating serious disease like cancer through yoga is wrong because it is not scientifically proven yet."

The yoga guru was in the eye of a storm earlier this year when Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Brinda Karat alleged that some ayurveda medicines manufactured by Ramdev' pharmacy used animal parts and human skulls.

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