Yoga guru Ramdev on Sunday withdrew his objectionable statement against allopathy in relation to Covid-19 treatment. The development came hours after Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan asked him to rescind his remarks.
Taking to Twitter, Ramdev wrote, Received your letter Dr Harsh Vardhan. In that context and to end the whole controversy over the conflict of different treatments with regrets, I am withdrawing my statement,” he tweeted.
However, later, he also retweeted a post by a Twitter user that said that Yoga and Ayurveda give us complete health. Modern medical science has limitations. It only gives symptomatic treatment whereas Yoga and Ayurveda gives systemic treatment, it said.
Union Health Minister in strongly worded letter on Sunday asked Baba Ramdev to completely withdraw his statement that said more people died of modern medical treatments during the Covid-19 crisis than the coronavirus itself following a massive controversy. He said such statements can break the morale of doctors and weaken our fight against the pandemic.
Referring to the purported comments from a recent Ramdev video on social media, Harsh Vardhan said calling the allopathy treatment for Corona as tamasha (farce), bekaar (worthless), and diwaliya (lame duck) is unfortunate. It is extremely unfortunate saying that lakhs of corona deaths have occurred due to allopathic medicine, he said.
The letter comes a day after the Indian Medical Association (IMA) sought action against Ramdev under the Epidemic Diseases Act, and demanded a written apology for using vitriolic statements against modern medicine and allopathy practitioners.
Besides IMA, several other medical associations protested against Ramdev. While IMA and the Federation of All India Medical Association sent legal notices to Ramdev for his baseless accusations, the Delhi Medical Association filed a police complaint against the yoga practitioner..
Ramdev, in the video, was heard saying that lakhs of people have died because of allopathic medicines, far more than those who died because they did not get treatment or oxygen. He also purportedly called allopathy a stupid and bankrupt science.
His comments drew flak from many on social media, following which Ramdev’s Patanjali group had said the video had been edited and the statement was taken out of context. In a statement, the Patanjali group said, the 55-year-old saffron-robed producer of Ayurvedic products had no ill-will against modern science and good practitioners of modern medicine.
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It is necessary to mention that the event was a private event and Swami jee (Ramdev) was reading out a forwarded WhatsApp message received by him and various other members who were participating in the event… what is being attributed against him is false and nugatory, it said.