The company says its ayurvedic medicines can cure dozens of ailments that modern medicine can’t. Experts say such claims are misleading and, at times, illegal.
Patanjali Ayurved has declared war on allopathy.
The latest salvo came on 10 July, through half-page advertisements in newspapers across India. Titled “Misconceptions spread by allopathy”, it listed 20 ailments—a mix of lifestyle disorders and chronic illnesses—that can’t be cured by modern medicine, only controlled.
“We have cured thousands of people of these incurable and life-threatening diseases and have provided scientific evidence to back up the efficacies of our treatments,” the advertisement said. To demonstrate, it listed the ayurvedic medicine manufactured by Patanjali that helped “cure” each of the 20 ailments. These were to be accompanied by the practice of …
Omkar specializes in long-form narrative features and has reported from India, the UK, Germany and the Maldives. He writes across beats, from politics and crime to cinema and sports. His works have been published in Indian and international outlets including The Caravan, Mint Lounge, the BBC, Al Jazeera and The Huffington Post.
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