Let's take the beaten track

 

Let’s take the beaten track.

 

 

The Corona epidemic has flummoxed everyone, especially health care professionals.

 

It has also let loose a slew of Healers, Hakims, Homeopaths and Vaidyas, brandishing their materia medicas. Everyone claiming that traditional practices, potions, herbs, etc. will soon cast their magic to ward off Covid. Each swearing by the utility of his or her own unique ‘ancient wisdom’. Along with their high-flown ideas, they hold flags flying high. Flags with nationalist and cultural colors.

 

China leads the way. Chinese healers, with active support from their government, are going overboard claiming that their traditional medicines happen to be the best. The Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine has published a list of half a dozen herbs and potions, of potential value. Of course none of their claims have strong enough evidence. Mostly it is wishful thinking and soft power positioning. 

 

The National institute of Health, USA, has warned against these and other such claims. It says that traditional Chinese medicine may contain pesticides, toxic chemicals and even modern pharmacological agents with no mention of them on the label. Efficacy and safety of these products is yet to be proved, the studies are incomplete. Figures provided by the Chinese are as doubtful as the Chinese numbers about the current epidemic.

 

China's political interests have fuelled support for Chinese medical practices. This is Chinese soft power trying to overpower alien culture by hard selling one’s language, culture, art, tradition, movies and medicine. Such soft power wars are constantly going on.  I am sure Zimbabwe awards its best movie makers but our eyes eye just the Oscars. This is an example of the American soft power. Worldwide reach of Yoga and Bollywood is an example of Indian soft power.  

 

All societies and cultures have traditional medicines; some useful, most doubtful and some useless.  Their claims need whetting and verification. There are subtle differences, for example if I have common cold, I ‘feel better’ with tea spiced with ginger but ginger doesn't ‘cure’ me. ‘Feeling better’ and ‘getting better’ are worlds apart.  In the current epidemic, they are literally worlds apart.

The Chinese president Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed that this ancient Chinese wisdom, passed on through generations, needs to be nurtured, cared for, researched, respected and spread far ‘n wide. Does all this sound familiar? Well it does.

 

 

There is a competition. Across the world every ‘pathy’ is trying to hard sell its products. The ministry of Ayush has suggested Arsenic Album, a homeopathic preparation, as a prophylactic. There isn’t even a single study to back this claim.  Important it is, to note that in a Tweet on 26th of March, the health ministry of Maharashtra specifically states that, ‘there’s no medicine recommended to stop Corona.’ However Naturopaths, Reki healers, Aroma therapists Acupressure and Acupuncture specialists are hawking their ware. Acupuncture is supposed to ‘strengthen the kidney and lungs’! Since most such claims are hollow, they are useless, harmless and not taken very seriously. This is one reason why such claims continue to pop up all the time. But sometimes things go wrong.  In Iran, following a rumor that alcohol could protect from Corona, 44 people died due to methyl alcohol poisoning.

 

 

All this reminds me of the HIV-AIDS epidemic. It took a decade for an efficacious drug to be developed and all this time, quack shops mushroomed from Kerala to California.  Today we have several drugs and all these quacks have had to shut shop. But for a while they did encash the AIDS phobia. A looming disaster, fear stricken, helpless, populace and quacks making hay while ignorance shines, is an all too familiar pattern. This rise and fall of the quacks needs sociological analysis.

 

Amongst the most amusing is the claim to increase immunity, immune-boosters!

All traditional, complementary and alternative systems of medicine claim thus. ‘Immunity’ is an ill-defined concept. There's no single test to gauge immune power nor any unit to measure it. This makes it easy to claim an increase in immunity and at the same time, very difficult to disprove such claim. This is why such claims and claimants thrive. It’s like claiming to improve one's power of imagination. Even sugar can be sold as an immune-booster, and why not? One is prone to illness on empty stomach. Even water is an immune-booster! Dehydration erodes several bodily mechanisms, including immunity.

 

Balanced diet, enough rest, regular exercise and life free of addictions is what is important.  There's no quick fix, over the counter, universal immune booster pill. There can’t be one.  But there's no dearth of sellers who encash public panic.

 

These so called boosters are supposed to be taken along with the treatment offered by modern medicine. This is a ploy. While success is said to be sired by the booster, failure can always be blamed on modern medicine aka allopathy.

 

Another common argument is, ‘what’s the harm? What if people keep doing apparently useless but innocuous things?’ There are problems aplenty.  Using scares resources for unproductive and possibly counterproductive treatments is harmful, weaning people away from rational management is harmful, the false sense of security is harmful and the social Government and media sanction and attention, that these semi-sciences gain, is harmful as well.

 

Only men of modern medicine openly admit that there is no curative treatment in modern medicine. They are fighting the scourge with whatever resources they have. With masked faces and PPE kits; with experimental therapies and ventilators. Their gains and losses are for everyone to access and assess. Research goes on.  Ideas are exchanged, errors and omissions documented, guidelines formulated and revised. It is through such detailed studies and planning that smallpox was eradicated, polio driven away, Guinea worm non-existent, AIDS under control and Leprosy and Measles on way out.

 

This is the way to go, sans bias, sans bigotry, let's follow the beaten track.

 

 

Dr. Shantanu Abhyankar

Mobile Number 9822010349

 

Seniors, a necessary evil!

Seniors, a necessary evil!

Dr. Shantanu Abhyankar

I have been asked to share ideas on the topic, ‘Seniors, A Necessary Evil!’

Fortunately the request came through a telephonic conversation and I can take the liberty to add punctuation marks between the words, Seniors, Necessary and Evil. I toyed with Idea of adding a full stop, but then that is not what I want to convey. I don’t believe that seniors indeed are evil.  I also toyed with Idea of a question mark.  But that wouldn't do either, I firmly believe that the role of seniors should be beyond a question mark, beyond   doubt and certainly not evil; rather angelical. However since some might find my views rather surprising I have chosen an exclamation mark and titled my write up, Seniors, a necessary evil!

Seniors undertake what is called as ‘ragging’ and cause apprehension, shame, embarrassment and at times mild to severe physical and/or psychological harm. In   extreme cases the young student is driven to suicide. Everybody may not be driven to suicide but some are forced to leave the system, some suffer serious psychological trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder and all these are ultimately losses for the person, the family, the society and the nation.  The reported incidents are just the tip of the iceberg and a lot lies unseen and unreported.

Students often try to justify and even glorify this practice. It’s commonly argued that ragging prepares the newbie for more difficult situations in life. The fact remains that ragging makes the junior accept the situation weakly and meekly. This is achieved through the power of numbers and position. It encourages exploitation and nonresistant acceptance. Another popular myth is that ragging is supposed to help break ice between seniors and juniors.  I am sure there are more pleasant ways of interaction and camaraderie.

Juniors face many anxieties and seniors are expected to be understanding, sympathetic, helpful and tolerant. They are   expected to guide the junior in his initial unsteady, slippery, tentative, fledgling steps.  Instead what the juniors are presented with is arrogance and supremacy hooliganism.

Many see ragging as a chance to revenge what they have suffered as juniors and the vicious circle goes on. Many perpetrators associate manliness with inflicting such pain and many a victims associate macho ideas in bearing the pain with an unflinching grin.  Complaining is often seen as a sign of give way, defeat, shame, surrender and loss of face.

Fortunately, in India, ragging is now seen not just as a personal offence but as shameful for the institution as well. The Supreme Court and other authorities have proactively tried to tackle the menace and with good results. I firmly believe that evil behavior of a senior must come as a surprise rather than a matter of fact. Zero ragging incidents is a matter of pride for the institute and its students.