Monitoring, regulating misleading ads for promoting Ayush medicine sale vital: Report

New Delhi: It is the need of the hour to strictly monitor and regulate the misleading advertisements for promoting the sale of Ayush medicine, a report said here.

A Parliamentary Standing Committee report on Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy(AYUSH) Ministry was of the view that collaborative efforts of the ministry along with the Department of Consumer Affairs, Information and Broadcasting ministry and state governments have certainly given results as misleading advertisements with respect to ASU&H drugs, which have been unregulated so far, have been controlled to an extent.

Appreciating the efforts made by Ayush ministry, the panel said due to monitoring by Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and the Grievances against Misleading advertisements (GAMA), 65 percent of the advertisements found misleading were withdrawn or rectified and the rest forwarded to state Ayush Drug Regulators.

The Committee was of the view that a strong and strict regulatory framework was essential for quality control of ASU&H drugs. Since the states are responsible to for quality control and regulation of Ayush drugs, they need financial assistance so as to strengthen their regulatory framework.

The panel noted that financial aid given to states was not much and therefore recommended significant enhancement of the same.

The Committee, headed by Prof Ram Gopal Yadav, also expressed concern about the issue of failed samples of ASU drugs and the consequent action taken in this regard. The panel was of the strong view that merely issuing show cause notice, departmental action among others was not sufficient to control the menace of spurious Ayush drugs.

Despite repeated recommendations of the Committee to have stringent measures to tackle the problem of failed samples, the ministry seemed not to have done anything in this regard. Taking serious note of the lackadaisical approach of the ministry in not taking concrete action against defaulters, the Committee emphasized that erring manufacturers need to be brought to book and dealt with strictly for misleading and duping innocent patients and playing with their lives.

The Committee accordingly recommended to the ministry to lay down stringent regulations which can act as a deterrent for erring manufacturers.