ayush and chinese medicine

IIM-A asks AYUSH to follow Chinese medicine example
Dayananda Yumlembam, TNN Jun 25, 2011, 01.49am IST

AHMEDABAD: In a set of recommendations that Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has given the ministry of health and family welfare's department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) recently, the latter has been suggested to learn from the Chinese examples. IIM-A recommended AYUSH introduce farming of medicinal herbs and commence mass scientific validation of medicines like the Chinese did.

After IIM-A was recently entrusted with the task of drawing the recommendations by AYUSH, the institute charted the recommendations by hosting a three-tier set of programmes which were attended by top level managers, professors, doctors, researchers and field workers. With suggestions from the participants, the recommendations were put together by the members of faculty of IIM-A including Anil Gupta, Mukul Dixit, Sanjay Verma, Vijaya Sherry Chand and Asha Kaul.

Gupta said, "At the moment 90% of medicinal herbs for manufacturing AYUSH medicines are procured form the forest. It is time the country introduced farming of these medicinal plants like China is doing. With the current practice of depending on the forest with no conservation policies, the future is bleak."
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The recommendations also included formation of a 'Medical Plant Corporation of India' and introduce incentives for cultivators of the medicinal plants from the farmers and a buy back policy. Talking about the loopholes in the current scenario Gupta said, "The farmers who cultivate the herbal plants themselves are facing problems while transporting their harvest as they are confused with forest products. This problem should be corrected."

Other suggestions that pointed towards china also included the need of laying keen focus on scientific validation of AYUSH medicines. The recommendation indicated that the Chinese herbal medicines have gained international popularity because of scientific validation and AYUSH also take the process seriously. Gupta said, "At the rate at which the validation of these medicines is going on in this country, which is very slow, it will take more than a century to complete."