Ramdev retracts allopathy remark after minister’s rap

NEW DELHI: Nudged by Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Yoga guru Ramdev on Sunday withdraw his statement on allopathy which he claimed was a Whatsapp message that he was reading at a meeting and not his personal opinion about allopathy.

“I am not against allopathy. Rather I admit that allopathy has been serving humanity through the continuous progress it made,” Ramdev wrote expressing regret that his reading out the Whatsapp message which denigrated modern medical science may have hurt people’s sentiments.

The move comes after Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan wrote a letter to Ramdev urging him to withdraw the statements as those have hurt the doctors’ fraternity who are fighting day in and day out. Doctors are “akin to deities for the people of the nation,” Dr Vardhan said.

A video of Ramdev went viral in which Ramdev was seen calling allopathic medicine takes

Harsh Vardhan said that Ramdev terming allopathic practices as ‘tamasha’ and ‘bekaar’ were unfortunate. He highlighted that the current recovery rate and low case fatality rate in India is due to the efforts of the doctors.

Harsh Vardhan also highlighted that given the current pandemic situation in the country it was unfortunate that Ramdev chose to question the abilities and methodology employed by doctors battling the Covid-19 pandemic. He also remined the yoga guru that Polio, SARS, tubercolosis, chicken pox and Ebola vaccines were also treated by vaccines which were possible due to allopathy. He pointed out in his letter that Ramdev is a public figure and since what he says is widely followed by the public the yoga guru should exercise caution before making any such statement.

Ramdev’s statements were met with harsh criticism by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) who wrote stronglyworded letter to the Centre and also demanded the yoga guru’s arrest for his statements. The Patanjali Trust on Saturday evening issued a statement saying that Ramdev’s words were taken out of context and he bears no ‘ill-will’ towards allopathic practices or modern medicine.

{ DR HARSH VARDHAN } HEALTH MINISTER

Your statements hurt doctors and weakens our resolve in this battle against the pandemic