The Indian Medical Association (IMA) and the Resident Doctors Association of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) have issued a press release on May 22 demanding strict action against Mr Ram Kisan Yadav, famously known as Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev, after he called allopathy a “stupid and bankrupt science” while addressing a group of followers.
In a video doing the rounds on social media, Baba Ramdev criticises various medicines like Chloroquine, Remdesivir, and Fabiflu and claimed that these allopathic drugs have failed to treat COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, Baba Ramdev stated that lakhs of people have died due to the consumption of allopathic medicines. “Many people might raise a controversy over what I am going to say”, he said before making the controversial statement. “Lakhon logon ki maut ka kaaran allopathy hai”, he said.
The video infuriated the doctors’ associations and resulted in the IMA and the Resident Doctors Association of AIIMS issuing a press release and demanding legal action against Baba Ramdev under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1987. The press release by IMA stated, “Taking people for ransom, selling them weird ideology, and winning business by defaming scientific medicine are unpardonable offences.” The press release also pointed out that Baba Ramdev and his associate Shri Balkrishna Ji have been taking modern medical allopathy treatment as and when they get into illness.
Another press release by IMA, Dwarka Branch, Delhi, stated, “He (Baba Ramdev) has belittled the sacrifice of more than 1200 doctors who have laid their lives in the line of duty serving humankind during the pandemic. The Resident Doctors Association of AIIMS demanded “strictest steps to be taken against Baba Ramdev’s inappropriate conduct at the earliest” and an apology from him.
In reaction to this, a statement issued by the Haridwar-based Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust said, “Swami Ji has no ill-will against modern science and good practitioners of modern medicine. What is being attributed against him is false and nugatory.” The release also mentioned that Baba Ramdev was reading a forwarded WhatsApp message.
