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.”