
amVT
60K posts









Dear Friends, please help this message reach the makers of the malayalam movie Vazha 2. It is long, but very important. A recent malayalam movie, called Vazha 2 portrayed a character who keeps consuming ayurvedic medicine -(arishtam, a herbal liquor, with 10-15% alcohol, which Ayurveda practitioners blindly claim to have "health benefits")- and ends with serious fatal liver disease. The people behind the movie are intelligent and well-informed. For decades, the Ayurveda community has been feeding public and patients the narrative that herbal medicine is safe and effective, even the ones containing toxic botanicals and alcohol. This narrative is now being challenged because there is a large body of peer-reviewed evidence that without reasonable doubt show that Ayurvedic herbals can be extremely toxic to the liver, sometimes even leading to death or liver transplantation. Now the movie format is bringing this to public's notice. My most impactful publication on this was literally about a 14 year old girl developing severe alcohol-related hepatitis due to long term use of PRESCRIBED ayurvedic herbals (the same category mentioned in the movie) for epilepsy management. Published paper: academic.oup.com/omcr/article/2… and media report: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/liv… There are also other reports that show ayurvedic herbals can cause cirrhosis (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC64…), severe liver injury (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC56…, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29960971/), liver failure (link.springer.com/article/10.100…) and death (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC69…). Analysis of Ayurvedic herbals - classical formulations, proprietary herbals as well as traditionally prepared ones have consistently shown alcohol, liver toxic botanicals, liver toxic heavy metals and organ damaging adulterants (frontiersin.org/journals/gastr…). Ayurveda is a harmful pseudoscience which which even global experts agree with (mcgill.ca/oss/article/me…). Now, the Ayurveda Medical Association of India (AMAI), which is in fact, a third rate society of Ayurveda practitioners and the herbals manufacturing companies that they are in cahoots with, has served legal notice against the movie writers and producers. They have threatened further action if the specific segment in the movie was not removed. The same AMAI group sent complaints against me to the police, Courts and also Prime Ministers Office also when I published peer reviewed papers on harms of Ayurvedic herbals. They could not even scratch my epidermis with all of that legal drama, because science wins. Evidence shines. These so-called Ayurveda Practitioners are losing business because public is realising that their products and services are one, useless (no evidence) and now two, dangerous also (more side effects than beneficial effects). An existential crisis is looming over their quackery business. I would like to offer my complete and highest level of academic expertise and support to the makers of the movie Vazha Part 2 to fight these cheap, fragile ego suffering so-called alternative medicine practitioners (SCAM) of Ayurveda who think they, and their unscientific businesses are above evidence based medicine and public health. DO NOT. I REPEAT, DO NOT, modify or remove anything from the movie. It is perfect and a huge needed public health activism. Keep up the good work! Do not bow down to any legalized glorified quacks! And for everyone here, watch both parts of Vazha movie. It is brilliant and worth your time and money. - The Liver Doc abbyphilips(at)theliverinst(dot)in


















