Reflections on Medicine and Life by Dr. S.P. Kalantri
I criticised Patanjali Ayurveda’s claimed cure for COVID-19 for making unsubstantiated claims of efficacy. The drugs it is offering are untested and unproven. They haven’t proven their mettle in a well-conducted adequately sized randomized controlled trial. The proponents of Ayurveda, however, ask – can Ayurveda, or alternative medicine in general, be evaluated in the same … Read the essay
The pressure for an effective treatment or vaccine for COVID-19 is high. There are more than 2,000 studies on COVID-19 across the world; many of these are trials on humans to develop vaccines, and to test the efficacy of drugs for this new disease. The urgency of this pandemic presents new, acute ethical challenges in … Read the essay
On June 23, Patanjali Ayurved claimed that its preparations, ‘Coronil’ would cure COVID-19 in just a week. Scientists, researchers, physicians and media registered their strong protest and expressed robust disbelief for the outrageous and misleading ads. The company claimed that their medicine was tested in a randomised controlled trial (RCT) among COVID-19 positive patients and … Read the essay
The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has approved Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, an Indian pharmaceutical company, to sell generic versions of Favipiravir for the treatment of COVID-19. This drug, originally invented by a Japanese company, was meant to treat influenza. After the outbreak of COVID-19, doctors in China and Russia started using it to treat COVID-19 … Read the essay
On 18 June 2020, Dr. C. S. Pramesh, the Director of the Tata Memorial Hospital texted me a message and then called me asking if I would be willing to do a talk on Covid and research during Pandemic. A day after. Although I had little time to prepare, I didn’t blink an eyelid to … Read the essay