“I was disturbed by the implications of the ‘Advisory’,” Sankaran Valiathan, a renowned cardiac surgeon who was behind the government’s ‘Ayurvedic Biology’ mission that was started a decade ago, told IANS.
“It will hurt the meagre effort being made in India to promote scientific research in Ayurveda. I fully endorse the views of Professor Lakhotia and colleagues and urge the Ministry to take a second look at the Advisory.”
“Any attempt to discourage research in AYUSH by non-AYUSH streams would have disastrous consequences to the already struggling system facing allegations of lack of scientific evidence,” warns Chandra Kant Katiyar, CEO of Technical Healthcare Division at Emami Ltd, a leading manufacturer of Ayurvedic medicines.
“In my opinion, the advisory is hyper protective knee jerk reaction by the Ministry.”
Katiyar points out that AYUSH had earlier signed agreements with scientific organizations like Department of Biotechnology and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research to promote and conduct research. The same AYUSH issuing such advisories displays lack of vision and direction.”
Says Lakhotia: “We believe that a better and rational approach for the AYUSH Ministry would be to curb poor-quality research journals in the field of traditional healthcare systems, rather than curbing involvement of researchers from diverse disciplines.
“The AYUSH Ministry could promote this by ensuring that the various AYUSH colleges and their educational programmes maintain high standards of teaching and research.”