IME-9, easily available online, claims on its website that the drug has “no side-effects” but recommends that it be taken under medical supervision. But information elicited under the Right-to-Information (RTI) Act from the CCRAS, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the other government agencies that developed these drugs undermine these claims. To be sure, clinical trials are not required for marketing proprietary Ayurvedic drugs such as BGR-34, if they are based on ancient Ayurvedic texts. The CCRAS’s website claims that the drug successfully treated malaria during epidemics in Rajasthan and Assam. In 2000, researchers led by Neena Valecha, a pharmacologist at Delhi’s National Institute of Malaria Research, tested around 100 patients to compare Ayush-64 with chloroquine, the standard treatment for malaria.

Source: The Hindu February 24, 2018 18:22 UTC