Coronil criticism is more politics, less about clinical trials?

New Delhi. Baba Ramdev’s Corona-kit is launched and so are the controversies. Everyone has his own agenda. Daily O‘s Kamlesh Singh puts it in right perspective : Coronil criticism is more politics, less about clinical trials. He writes, Let’s get this straight. There is no cure, no vaccine, nothing on the horizon yet for Covid-19, the Chinese gift that keeps giving nightmares to the world that has literally stopped in its tracks. The novel coronavirus is on a killing spree. Pharma companies, scientists, virology experts are working overtime because the first to market will also make a killing as half the world will take the medicine and everyone will want the vaccine. It was amid this clamour that Baba Ramdev threw his saffron gauntlet into the ring. The hullabaloo that ensued was natural, as the herbal concoction by Ramdev’s Patanjali. He became the first to claim an effective medicine to blunt the coronavirus. The claim was called spurious and declared dangerous. Because people had doubts.

Everyone has doubts, about the efficacy, the trials, the ingredients, and above all the baba behind it all. Doubt is a good thing. Doubt often leads to the truth, as opposed to blind faith. Faith is a good thing too even if it leads to darkness. If you have faith, you manage to beat the pervading hopelessness and, even experts agree here, some illnesses because faith apparently is bliss for your immunity like ignorance is for sanity.

When there is no medicine for a disease, everything is medicine. From hydroxychloroquine to Remdesivir to Faviprivir. None of these are medicines for the novel coronavirus. Yet, doctors across the world are giving it to coronavirus patients, even those with severe complications. A drowning man will clutch at a straw and men on ventilators are in the clutches of big pharma. They can manipulate trials, be published in Lancet and get approved by WHO the whatever, only to be disgraced later.

So why Remdesivir and not Ramdevsivir? Just because Baba Ramdev’s political leanings are half-naked and full saffron, we tend to dismiss the traditional Indic medicine system, Ayurveda, while giving a long rope to homeopathy, the quackery dreamt up by Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann in 18th Century Germany. By the way, Nazis conducted homeopathic trials and obtained ‘wholly and disastrously negative’ results, but that fact doesn’t cast any shadow on homeopathy.  In fact when homeopathy is banned or restricted all over the world, India will have a thriving homeopathy culture because Vishwas par duniya chalti hai. Why is this nation that is cured by Shani Maharaj’s oil suddenly talking about clinical trials and medical journals? People praying to their pir baba are probing about peer review. Nobody asked for any evidence for Camphora or Arsenicum Album.Coronil has something. Three proven herbs. Can they cure Corona? Well, unlikely. Can it boost immunity? Yes. But if you start taking them now, they won’t do that overnight. Immunity is a long-term process.In the short-term, it all boils down to faith. So, if you have faith, go ahead and have it. If you can have homeopathy, you can have Coronil too.

Now, after this opinion from Daily O , we move to some others-

ANI reports Uttarakhan Licence Officer  : As per Patanjali’s application, we issued them license. They didn’t mention coronavirus, we only approved license for immunity booster, cough & fever. We’ll issue them a notice asking how they got permission to make the kit (for COVID19): Licence Officer, Uttarakhand Ayurved Dept

Express Reports Congress lead Rajsthan Health minister  :Baba Ramdev’s controversial medicine ‘coronil’ for coronavirus patients has run into serious trouble in Rajasthan as the state health department has called the trials ‘illegal’ and served a notice to Jaipur’s NIMS Hospital which reportedly collaborated in this.Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma has also demanded legal action from the centre against Ramdev for misleading peopl at a challenging time like this and declared that anyone selling or distributing these pills will be put behind bars.

The Print searches Hindu dreamers: With ‘Coronil’, Ramdev is once again trying to lure the emotions of middle-class families, for the purpose of expanding his empire. But it serves another purpose — it offers the Hindu Right a way to assert its claim of being ‘the first’ to find a ‘cure’ for the coronavirus even as renowned medical scientists around the world struggle to come up with a vaccine. Over the last few years, all past glories, discoveries and achievements have been put at the feet of Hinduism. From aeroplane (‘pushpak viman’) to ‘plastic surgery’, scientific successes have been adjudged as the brainchild of a Hindu mind.

Republic Reports Uddhav Govt. warnings to Baba :Amid the ongoing controversy over Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s company Patanjali Ayurved introducing a self-touted “cure” for coronavirus infection, the Maharashtra government has said that it will not allow the sale of “spurious medicines” in the state unless the National Institute of Medical Sciences, Jaipur finds out whether clinical trials of ‘Coronil’ were done at all. Maharashtra Home Minister on his Twitter on Wednesday fired, “An abundant warning to Baba Ramdev that Maharashtra won’t allow the sale of spurious medicines.”

The Quint sees Murky History  :Cancer, HIV, COVID: Patanjali’s Long List of Murky, Unproven Cures.

And, Live Mint reports Ayush :Coronil for treating COVID-19? Decision on Patanjali’s coronavirus medicine soon, says govt. Baba Ramdev said that ‘Coronil and Swasari’ have shown 100% favourable results during the clinical trial on COVID-19 patients. Ayush minister Naik said that documents related to the drugs and the research trial undertaken by Ramdev’s herbal medicine company were sent to the Ayush ministry. Naik added, the Ayush ministry will soon clear its stance on Patanjali’s Coronil — an ayurvedic drug which claims to cure coronavirus infection in just seven days. While launching the medicine earlier this week, Baba Ramdev said that Coronil have shown 100% favourable results during the clinical trial on COVID-19 patients. The corona kit by Patanjali consists of the three medicines – Coronil, Shwasari and Anu Tel. It will cost ₹545 and will have medicines for 30 days, said Acharya Balkrishna, the managing director of Patanjali Ayurved. The drug was clinically tried on 280 COVID-19 patients and 69% of them were cured within three days, Ramdev said during the launch.

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