PHA-Exchange> Traditional Indian remedy for asthma challenged in court :British Medical Journal

[sonali jain]

BMJ  2004;328:1457 (19 June),
doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7454.1457-b 
 

Traditional Indian remedy for asthma challenged in
court 
Sanjay Kumar 
New Delhi 


A 159 year old traditional remedy of offering "fish
medicine" to cure asthma has been challenged in the
Indian courts. The Indian Medical Association has
questioned the secrecy surrounding the ingredients of
the medicine, invoking the provisions of the Drugs and
Magical Remedies Act 1954. 

Thousands of people with asthma travel to Hyderabad
for the annual gathering where the medicine is
delivered free to the patient in the mouth of a live
fish. 

"Any substance other than food used for curing
[people] falls under the category of a drug and its
ingredients must be disclosed to the consumers," says
Dr C L Venkata Rao, secretary of the Charminar branch
of the Indian Medical Association in Hyderabad, who
filed the writ in the Hyderabad High Court. 

The herbal medicine is placed in the mouth of a 5-7 cm
long murrel fish and the patient is made to swallow
the live fish, repeating this ritual annually for
three years. The medicine's ingredients have been
guarded zealously by the Bathini Goud family, which
claims a saint gave its formula to their ancestor
Veeranna Goud in 1845 forbidding them from making the
ingredients public. 

"The medicine would lose its efficacy if we broke the
pledge and it will fall prey to unbridled
commercialisation," Bathini Harinath Goud said. "We
have been offered unlimited money in the past in
return for disclosure of the formula by pharmaceutical
companies, but we prefer to spend money from our
savings and give the medicine free to all the
patients," said Mr Goud. 

"Hundreds of thousands of people have been completely
cured of asthma with this medicine," claims Mr Goud.
He said that some 650 000 patients with asthma took
the medicine this year, a figure disputed by Dr Rao,
who says that according to official records only 52
000 fish were sold. 

"There is no evidence that it works," Dr Ajit Vigg,
head of respiratory and critical care medicine at
Apollo Hospital, Hyderabad, said. "On the contrary, we
have seen 10-15% patients whose condition has
worsened." 

Dr Vigg says they had sent some dozen chronic asthma
patients to be treated with fish medicine a few years
ago and monitored variables such as their forced vital
capacity and forced expiration volume before and after
the treatment but found no improvement. "In my
practice of 20-25 years, I have not seen a single
patient whose condition has either improved or who has
got completely cured with fish medicine," he said. 

Both Mr Goud and the critics concur that there are no
records to verify the claims and counterclaims. 

Under the court order, samples of the medicine have
been sent to three different laboratories for
analysis. The laboratory reports have to be filed by 1
July. Dr Rao says his association has demanded that
the contents of the fish medicine be made known to the
recipients. It has also called for prosecution of the
Bathini Gouds for violating the provisions of the
Drugs and Magical Remedies Act and a ban on government
spending in promoting fish medicine. 

Dr Rao added that as the medicine was administered
without using gloves to a large number of people,
communicable diseases could be spread. 




 

________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/