Ayurveda

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Ayurveda Deserves To Be Given The Status Of Mainstream Medicine

News Reports

 

MUMBAI, INDIA, August 24, 2004: "So far as India is concerned Ayurveda has

always been the mainstream medicine. The reach of modern medicine in India

even today is 30 percent. And 70 percent people are being treated through

Ayurvedic medicines or household remedies. However it is unfortunate that

out of the total governmental expenditure 97 percent is being spent on the

modern medicine or allopathic and only 3 percent is being spent on

Ayurveda," said Dr. Ashok Vaidya, Medical and Research director, Bhartiya

Vidya Bhavan's Swami Prakashananda Ayurveda Research Centre (SPARC),

Mumbai. In his recent lecture, Dr. Vaidya pointed out -- "It is unfortunate

that we notice good things about our own culture and medicine only when the

British journals publish them. Today healthy life styles are coming to us

from the West. Though we have a unique heritage which outlines the ideal

ritucharya (living in harmony with the different seasons) and dinacharya (a

daily routine which is in harmony with nature)." He said, "Pharmaceutical

industry today is a 65 billion dollars industry at a global level and the

cash rich multinational companies do not want the truth about the

effectiveness of Ayurveda to reach the people at large. They have a vested

interest in Ayurveda being given the status of an alternative medicine

rather than to let it emerge as mainstream medicine, which is the position

that it really deserves in the world. Today the European Union wants

Ayurvedic medicines to be dubbed as herbal, so that they always remain a

part of alternative system of medicines." He concluded by saying, "What we

need to do is to collect data and scientifically document the good that

Ayurveda is doing to such a large number of people around the world."