WHAT'S NEXT IN THE WAR AGAINST PSEUDOSCIENCE?

Although the gains made in promoting rational thinking over legitimised quackery in India are small, they are gathering strength

- Shrabonti Bagchi

In July, a division bench of the Supreme Court directed the Kerala government, the Union ministry of Ayush (Ayurveda, Yoga, and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) and the Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy, a research organisation funded by the ministry, to respond to a petition filed by a Kerala doctor questioning the large-scale distribution of the homoeopathic medicine Arsenicum album in the state during the covid-19 pandemic.

It was a small institutional win in an ongoing war that is usually fought on the slippery battleground of social media-its wins and losses measured in hesitant individual acknowledgements of doubt about the efficacy of traditional medical systems, or in the number of death threats received by science communicators on any given day.

While delivering the notice to respond to the government bodies, one of the judges on the division bench, Justice Aniruddha Bose, noted that he also "sometimes takes such medicines", but contradicted the Union ministry's stand on the issue that it is harmless, saying it could be poisonous depending on the "level of dilution".

Arsenicum album is a peculiar medicine in homoeopathy's cabinet-if prepared in the classical way, the final product would contain exactly zero molecules of arsenic, making it about as effective as tap water; but if prepared more, let's say, enthusiastically, it could end up poisoning people as the active ingredient is, indeed, the known poison arsenic.