With an aim to spread consumer awareness about Ayurvedic medicine, the department of Rasa Shastra, under the faculty of Ayurveda at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), has made a draft for development of consumer guidelines for appropriate use of Ayurvedic medicines.

-Team@CMHF

• The final draft aims at propagating consumer medical information (CMI) to dispel misconceptions and myths associated with age-old traditional medicine system.
• Dr Anand Chaudhary, principal investigator of the project, told TOI that it was a landmark development in the field of Ayurveda and that they were receiving overwhelming response from every part of the world for coming out with consumer guidelines for appropriate use of Ayurvedic medicines.
• Around 400 questionnaires for physicians and consumers were sent across the country and 273 responses were collected from various parts.
• The duration of the project was from July 1 to October 31 this year, but it was later extended till December 25 with a mutual agreement between WHO and BHU.
• Dr Chaudhary, an associate professor in the department of Rasa Shastra, emphasized the need for consumer medicine information (CMI) which formed the basis of development of consumer guidelines.
• The CMI supports information exchange and helps in developing strong relationships between these groups, foster informed decision-making and aid better compliance

Very few people aware that the range of products runs into an inventory of anything from 200 to 20,0000 products produced by over 8,000 manufacturers and also very few people know the difference between branded products and classical products.

• Besides, lack of regulatory norms, shortage of quality medicines, poor communication between prescribers and patients and exclusion of patients from the information needed to become partners in therapy compounds the problems.
• The development of consumer guidelines would remove the problems and spread awareness for appropriate use of Ayurvedic medicines
• Promoting and developing a mandatory regulation for CME certifications of all Ayurvedic physicians after a certain interval to update them about recent development.

For further reading log on to
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-12-23/varanasi/30550847_1_ayurvedic-medicines-department-of-rasa-shastra-consumer-guidelines