Fishy' medicine or sure asthma cure?
HYDERABAD: Asthma has no cure but when thousands from across the country turn up to swallow a live fish at Bathini Goud's camp for free asthma cure even the most critical tend to wonder if the 'medicine' (now legally labelled 'prasadam') is effective at all.
While rationalists rubbish this 'miracle cure' as humbug, Gouds maintain that their prasadam, a yellow paste the ingredients of which are a family secret, offers a "100 per cent cure" for asthma. The truth lies somewhere in between and health experts maintain that Goud's fish therapy should co-exist with other forms of medicines available.
A reality check, if needed, should be before and after tests conducted on those who take this fish therapy. But no such research has been done to date.
But then the Bathini Goud brothers are not the savvy Baba Ramdev, who records blood parameters and gets done a lung function test before and after a yoga camp. It is such modern-day data that could put to rest many a controversy, which is missing right now.
So, bogged down by controversy, the Gouds have changed the name of the yellow paste from 'medicine' to 'prasadam' to "herbal food supplement'' now.
They continue to hardsell it though, stating that the paste in the fish's mouth cures asthmatics of their bouts of breathlessness. How? Well, the Gouds state that the "live fish travels, wagging its tail and fins, through the throat and negotiates the phelgm congestion'' and thus curing the patient. Of course, there are several dietary restrictions and follow up doses after the camp.
Nevertheless, doctors smirk at the scientific inadequacy of Goud's explanation. "Goud said in a television interview that the fish induces the release of certain enzymes in the stomach. Asthma is not related to the oesophagus or the stomach lining or to the release of enzymes,'' says pulmonologist Dr Vyakarnam Nageshwar.
Health experts point out that even tablets (for asthma) go into the stomach and then get into the blood stream. "We are asking the Goud brothers to give a reply in terms of modern medicine and that is very unfair,'' says Dr Veena Shatrugna, former deputy director of the National Institute of Nutrition.
She says that modern medicine does not know what to do with most asthmas and is being "pompous and arrogant'' in rubbishing Goud's fish therapy.
While some doctors say that the fish could just be the tool carrying the medicinal paste into the patient's body, others note that the use of fish is not without reason.
"Today we know that the fish contains a particular kind of fatty acid, N3, and people who have suffered a heart attack are being asked to eat fish. It could be that N3 that helps people with coronary diseases could also work in this condition (asthma),'' says Shatrugna, however adding that some basic research on the 'prasadam' could help verify that.
A serious concern about the paste used by the Gouds was the presence of steroids in it, the cases against which were filed by Jana Vignana Vedika. The cases were set aside by the courts last month.
Pulmonologist with Apollo Hospitals, Dr Pradyut Waghray, says that what made doctors like him doubtful about the presence of steroids was the Goud family asking patients to come for four doses over four years.
They suspected the use of depot steroids that are given as a lumpsum one-time dose and have an effect that lasts longer. But the presence of steroids was ruled out when tests were conducted at many places including Indian Institute of Chemical Technology.
Jana Vignana Vedika continues to argue that the ingredients of the 'prasadam' need to be disclosed and a label put on it. But, others believe in the fish-therapy co-existing with the many others available.
"I have seen a case where the patient came back (from the fish medicine camp) with a bout. But at the same time I have patients who have got relief,'' says Dr Waghray, adding that Goud's has its own place. "People should continue with conventional treatment and use it as add-on therapy,'' he notes.
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