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Dear group members last year an e-mail was circulated

warning about the side-effects of scrupulous herbal

medicines with the insinuation that ayurvedic

medicines are also of the same category. Some very

specific allegations were made against me and I was

given no chance to reply. I therefore wish to use this

forum to place before you the original allegations and

my defense of the same. If you are convinced in what I

have to say please pass on the message to any person

who might have a doubt regarding the use of metals or

other toxic substances in ayurvedic medicines.

 

-

Message Spread by Mr. Vinod Sheth

 

Subject :- Extremely Important

 

Vinod M. Sheth, Mumbai - 400 026.

 

01.10.2003

To Near and Dear Ones,

With profound grief and sorrow I wish to inform you

that my son, Ketu Sheth, aged 34 years, passed away on

08.09.2003. He was admitted to Sir H. N. Hospital on

14.08.2003. For the first time it was detected that he

was suffering from Kidney Failure. Kidney Biopsy

showed that he had extensive damage of both the

kidneys. Doctors opined that this condition may also

be caused due to heavy metal poisoning.

This made us think whether in the past he had taken

any unusual medicine. We came to know that he had

taken some herbal preparation given by Dr. Anand

Mandhane, M. D. (Ayu. Med.), Chief Physician,

Executive Director, at Brightland Holiday Village, at

Mahabaleshwar when he had visited that place few

months before. This medicine was prescribed to him for

his complaints of Tonsillitis and Constipation. Though

the medicine he had taken was not available, we knew

the name and address of the doctor who had supplied

the same. So we telephoned him to send the same

medicines again without informing the doctor about the

current problems of my son.

This doctor sent the same medicines through courier

which was delivered to us at a Hotel in Mumbai. We got

the medicines analyzed and were informed by experts

that it contained extremely high levels of metals,

like lead, arsenic, mercury and copper.

 

The Laboratory Tests of these powders and Tablets

showed the following results:

 

Permissible Limit for Human Consumption Actuallyfound in Powder

and/or Tablets

Arsenic 0 to 1 PPM 7.5 PPM

(Stain method)

Lead 0 to 1 PPM 11.64 PPM

Cadium 0 to 1 PPM 1.08 PPM

Copper 0 to 1 PPM 617.00 PPM

Mercury 2 PPM 4,000 to 7,000

PPM in 2 different

sets of tablets.

 

We strongly suspect that the medicines taken by my

son might have contained the same and these metals

could be the possible reasons for this Kidney damage,

though we do understand that it is very difficult to

establish the same.

We have all the respect for all the branches of

medical therapies. However, we would like to appeal to

all of you to be careful while taking medicines which

are branded as "Herbal Medicines", "Native Medicines",

"Faki", etc. which are claimed to be without any side

effects. Please get them checked from experts before

taking them. We have lost our son and any amount of

investigation is not going to bring him back. However,

as it is our social obligation, we feel that such

incidences should not recur. Therefore, we earnestly

request you to spread this message to maximum number

of people by verbal persuasion, letters, faxes and

E-mails.

 

If you need any clarification, please feel free to

approach us.

Best Regards, For the Ketu's Family in Extreme Grief

Vinod Sheth

Aggrieved Father.

 

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Our Reply to This

 

Dear Well Wisher,

 

This is in reference to a message circulated by Shri.

Vinod Seth regarding his son Shri. Ketu's sad demise,

a few weeks ago. In that message, he blaimed that the

Ayurvedic medicines provided by us might have produced

the kidney damage to Shri. Ketu.

When we contacted Shri. Vinod Seth and requested to

give a copy of a laboratory report , to our surprise,

he denied to do so. Then we decided to do the metal

analysis of medicines on our own and send the samples

to one of the most authentic lab, IICT (Indian

Institute of Chemical Technology) Hyderabad, one of

the CSIR( Centre for Scientific and Industrial

Research, under the directorship of veteran scientist

Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar) labs run by Govt. Of India.

Mr. Ketu was given a two months course of three

medicines in June 2002, almost 15 months before his

death. They were - Arogyavardhini, Lavan Bhaskar

Churna and Gandharva Haritaki Churna. We added fourth

medicine, Agnitundi Vati in his second course (which

he didn't consume). All the medicines were bought from

the well reputed pharmacies like Dabur and others.

 

The report of analysis is as follows -

 

Method Used for analysis - ICPES ( Inductively Coupled

Plasma Emission Spectrophotometry) and AAS ( Atomic

Absorption Spectrophotometry).

 

Mercury

 

1. Agnitundi Vati - 26353 ppm = 26.3mg/gm. = 2.63% (

allowed * = 3 - 4%)

2. Aarogyavardhini Vati - 9055 ppm = 0.9 mg/gm. = 0.9%

( allowed * = 2 - 3 % )

3. Lavanbhaskar Churna - < 1 ppm .

4. Gandharva Haritaki Churna - 12 ppm.

 

Copper

 

1. Agnitundi Vati - NIL ( allowed * = Nil)

2. Aarogyavardhini Vati - 4120 ppm = 4.1 mg/gm. =

0.41% ( allowed * = 0.5 - 1.5 % )

3. Lavanbhaskar Churna - < 1 ppm .

4. Gandharva Haritaki Churna - 12 ppm.

 

Arsenic - Less than 1 ppm in all 4 medicines (

allowed * = nil)

 

Cadmium - Below detection level in all 4 medicines (

allowed * = nil)

 

Lead - Less than 1 ppm in all 4 medicines ( allowed *

= nil)

 

* = According to Ayurvedic Formulary of India,

published by Health Ministry of Govt. of India.

 

All the reports are showing that there is nothing

harmful in the medicines. Metals were one of the

ingredients in med. No.1 and 2. They were Bhasmas of

mercury and copper. Arsenic, Lead and Cadmium were not

the ingredients of any medicines. We were shocked to

see these metals along with mercury and copper in Mr.

Vinod Seth's message as they shouldn't have appeared

in the analysis. It is almost impossible that the

manufacturing companies will put these metals in the

medicines even though they are not among their

ingredients. In our analysis, scientists couldn't find

these metals.

 

Quantity of metals mentioned in that message was in

"PPM". PPM is a relative term and can't give you an

idea of exact quantity of metals unless other

concerning data is provided. You can see that mercury

found in Mr. Vinodbhai's analysis was max. 7000 ppm

and in our analysis it is 26000 ppm. Four times more

than his reports! But still it is less than the

allowed limit. Same thing is true with copper. It is

six times more than Mr. Vinodbhai's report but under

the allowed limits.

 

Rather the analysis has shown that the metal contents

in the medicines are less than the minimum expected

amount decided by Health Ministry of Govt. of India.

 

We understand that Sheth family complained about our

medicines to the FDA Dept. of Maharashtra Govt. The

officials of this dept. visited our place and

collected the samples of the same medicines which were

provided to Shri. Ketu. Analysis of these medicines at

the Govt. labs also showed that the medicines didn't

contain anything harmful and all of them were as per

the prescribed norms.

 

It is very simple to understand that if medicine

contained mercury 3500 times and copper 1600 times

more than the permissible limit (as mentioned in that

message) then the person should have suffered on the

very first day of taking the medicine and not after 15

months. I understand that the heavy metals show their

toxicity in later period. But this is true when a

person is consuming the metals which are relatively

(2 to 100 times) higher than the permissible limits.

If we go by the values mentioned in Shri. Vinodbhai's

message, it is clear that the medicines should have

produced their symptoms of acute toxicity ( like

severe gastrointestinal disturbances etc.) on the day

one as their said proportion is dangerously high. But

nothing like this had happened. Patient consumed a

whole course for two months.

 

Ayurved uses metals in its medicines since a few

thousand years. The formulary of Ayurvedic drugs

published by the Health Ministry of Govt. of India

mentions more than 175 preparations which contains one

or more metals. Metals are never used in a raw form.

They are processed in a certain way before adding into

the medicines. In this procedures metals are converted

into totally different forms which are harmless.

 

Even allopathy also uses so many metals like iron,

zinc etc. But while giving iron to an anaemic patient

, they don't give raw iron. They use a processed form

like ferrous sulphate or ferrous fumarate etc.

 

We believe that even the quantities of mercury and

copper in Mr. Vinod Seth's reports might be normal and

within the permissible limits. It seems that Seth

family is misled and misguided by their "experts"

while interpreting the term PPM. It also seems that

they didn't discuss their report with any authority in

the field of Ayurved (private or Government) and

didn't check the permissible limits of metals for

Ayurvedic medicines as per the government standards.

Generally, so many allopathic doctors also mislead the

society, as they used to be unaware of the philosophy

of Ayurved. Permissible limits of metals in Mr.

Vinodbhai's message are for raw metals in food and

water and not for the processed ones in medicines.

 

Sheth family didn't ask us anything and started

circulating that message. Had they discussed the

matter with us , we could have clarified these things.

In spite of our so many requests, they still didn't

show their laboratory report to us . It was

unfortunate on our part that we were not given a

chance to explain these facts.

 

The message spread by Shri. Vinod Seth created a

panic in the society. I got hundreds of calls and

messages from the people across the globe. So many

people just stopped taking Ayurvedic medicines from

their doctors.

 

 

Ayurved is a science as old as civilisation. It

wouldn't have survived for centuries if its medicines

contained such a dangerous ingredients. As you are

among the people who have been treated by us, we

thought it is necessary to make you aware of the real

facts. It is also my duty as a sincere student of

Ayurved to fight against these myths.

 

We hope you will continue to keep your faith in

Ayurved.

 

Please feel free to ask me anything if you need any

clarification.

 

Thank You.

 

Dr. Anand Mandhane

(sanjeevanayu)