Association files defamation suit against yoga guru
Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev continues to face the heat over his disparaging remarks against the efficacy of allopathic line of treatment in dealing with Covid-19 cases. On Wednesday, the Uttarakhand chapter of Indian Medical Association (IMA) threatened to file a defamation case of `1,000 crore if he failed to submit a written apology.
At the same time, in Delhi, IMA wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that yoga guru Ramdev be booked immediately under sedition charges for alleged misinformation campaign on vaccination and challenging Government protocols for treatment of Covid-19.
In its letter to Modi, the IMA said it was gratifying to note that only 0.06 per cent of people who received both the doses of vaccine “got minimal” infection by coronavirus, and “very rarely” vaccinated people had a severe lung infection.
“It is well proved that by vaccination we save our people and country from catastrophic cascades of severe infection. At this juncture, painfully we bring to your kind notice, the video claiming 10,000 doctors have died in spite of taking both the doses of vaccine and lakhs of people have died due to allopathic medicine are circulating virally in the social media, as said by Ramdev, owner of Patanjali products,” the body said in its letter.
“If someone is claiming the allopathic medicine has killed people, it is an attempt to challenge the ministry which has issued the protocol for treatment to us,” it stated.
The IMA pointed out that as on date and according to its registry, 753 doctors died in the first wave and 513 lost their lives in the second wave due to Covid-19.
None in the first wave could receive the vaccine and the majority who had died in the second wave also couldn’t take their vaccine for various reasons.
“Now deceitfully attributing 10,000 people have died in spite of two doses of vaccination, is a deliberate move to stall the efforts of vaccination to reach our masses and it needs to be curtailed immediately,” the IMA said.
“We are not against any medicine promoted by the ministry and are happy to share in most of our public health treatment centres, the drugs promoted by the AYUSH ministry. We opposed certain drugs promoted without the approval of the ministry as a curative drug. “
In Dehradun, IMA State unit wrote to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat and Chief Secretary Om Prakash seeking strict action against Ramdev. In the letter to CM, the Secretary of IMA Uttarakhand State branch, Dr Ajay Khanna said the statement of Ramdev has demoralised and angered the doctors fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We at IMA have lost 153 of our doctors in the first Covid wave and 452 doctors in the second wave of the pandemic. The anguish and anger of the doctors might jeopardise our fight towards this devastating pandemic,” the letter said.
On Sunday, Ramdev was forced to withdraw the statement made in the viral video clip in which he is heard questioning some of the medicines being used to treat the coronavirus infection and saying that “lakhs have died from taking allopathic medicines for Covid-19”.
A day later, however, he posed 25 questions to the IMA in an “open letter” on his Twitter handle, asking if allopathy offered permanent relief for ailments such as hypertension and type-1 and 2 diabetes. He went on to list modern-day ailments such as Parkinson’s disease and wondered if allopathy had any painless cure to treat infertility as well as to reverse ageing and increase hemoglobin.
