The Uttarakhand government will serve a notice to yoga guru Ramdev’s company Patanjali Ayurved for advertising its preparations as a cure for the coronavirus, reported PTI on Wednesday. This came after Union minister Shripad Naik on Tuesday said that it was good that Ramdev’s company had given the country a new medicine, but added that it still needed proper certification and permission.
Uttarakhand Ayurved department’s licence officer YS Rawat confirmed that the notice is being sent to Ramdev’s company. “Patanjali Ayurved Limited had the licence only for manufacturing an immunity booster against cough and fever,” he said. “There was nothing in their application related to the treatment of coronavirus.”
He added that the company’s application was received on June 10, and was approved by a panel two days later. “...but the firm had the permission to manufacture only two or three drugs as immunity boosters against cough and fever, and not a drug for [the] coronavirus,” Rawat said.
The notice to Ramdev’s company will be sent under Rules 170 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, that makes it compulsory for companies to ask for permission from the licensing authority before advertising a product in print or electronic media.
Meanwhile, in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, a petitioner has moved a court calling for a first information report against Ramdev and his company’s Chief Executive Officer Acharya Balkrishna. The plea said that the two had allegedly put the lives of people at risk by claiming to have come up with a cure for Covid-19. The case will be heard on June 30.
The yoga guru has claimed his company followed all the requirements of modern science and evidence-based medicine. Ramdev also said that if Ayurveda did not work, how would the company’s studies show 100% favourable results.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy, or AYUSH, asked the company to stop advertising its preparation as a cure for the coronavirus. It was also asked to provide details of its preparation. Later on the same day, Ramdev said that his company had taken all the required permissions from the production stage to its clinical trials.
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