Strong medicine

Patanjali ad ban is the right remedy

The Supreme Court has administered a strong antidote to the chronic problem of misleading medical advertising by restraining Patanjali Ayurved from advertising or marketing its products until further orders. The court has also issued contempt notices to the company’s founder Baba Ramdev and Managing Director Acharya Balkrishna for ignoring previous orders against publishing misleading claims. The allegations against Patanjali were filed by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) in August 2022, following a prominent ad campaign by Patanjali, detailing “misconceptions” spread by the pharma and allopathy industry. Elsewhere, Mr Ramdev, who is a popular and politically influential yoga instructor, had publicly described allopathy as a “stupid and bankrupt science” and said, without offering corroborating proof, that allopathic medicine was responsible for Covid-19 deaths. Patanjali also claimed some diseases could be cured through its ayurvedic medicines.

In a country where large sections of the population are insufficiently knowledgeable about the medical sciences and tend to disproportionately place their faith in all manner of untested “herbal” treatment, this sort of advertising is misleading and harmful. It was principally for this reason that the Ministry of AYUSH (abbreviation for Ayurveda, Yoga, Unnani, Siddha, and Homeopathy), which sets standards for traditional medicine, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Advertising Standards Council of India in early 2017 to identify misleading advertisements. Yet, Patanjali’s misinformation campaign continued. This, even though the Supreme Court had told the company as far back as November last year to stop publishing these claims or face a heavy fine of up to Rs 1 crore on every product on which a false claim is made. It is notable that the court also pulled up the government for “sitting with eyes closed” when the country was “taken for a ride”. In fact, the government would have been well within its rights to order Patanjali to withdraw its advertisements, which were in direct violation of Section 4 of the Drugs and Other Magical Remedies Act (DOMA), 1954, and the Consumer Protection Act, 2019. Under Doma, the publication of a misleading advertisement is punishable by six months’ imprisonment and/or a fine for the first offence, extendable to one year for a second offence. Under the Consumer Protection Act, a violation includes a prison term of up to two years and a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh. Repeat offences attract five years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs 50 lakh.

The Centre has, meanwhile, agreed to look into the allegations and suggest measures in response. Topping the list should be more robust regulation for advertising both ayurvedic and over-the-counter (OTC) allopathic drugs. Both operate in grey areas. For instance, Doma does not recognise a list of OTC drugs although it provides a list of diseases for which any advertisement is prohibited. But that still leaves the field dangerously open for all manner of products, including some vaccines. As for advertisements for ayurvedic products, these are more common than their allopathic counterparts because they do not require pre-approval or any stipulation of minimum information for the consumer. Indians who struggle with medical expenses are particularly vulnerable to the growing promotion of an “indigenous” medical system supposedly offering cheaper remedies. The Supreme Court’s ruling is a good starting point to overhaul regulations governing this medical system.