AP: Quacks as big a challenge as AIDS

[Guest guest]

Quacks as big a challenge as AIDS

THE TIMES OF INDIA NEWS SERVICE

21.12.01

HYDERABAD: While preventing its spread has become a tough task for

authorities in the state, which has the second highest incidence of

AIDS in the country, containing quacks who claim to have a cure for

the killer disease is becoming an equally daunting challenge for the

drug administration.

Quacks dispensing a cure for AIDS are raking in a lot of money but

whenever law enforcing agencies are on hot pursuit, they are giving

them the slip and changing places of operation.

The Indian Medicines and Homoeopathy department, Drugs Control

Administration and AIDS Control Society are keeping an eye on people

who have been claiming to have a cure for the deadly disease but so

far not one quack has been punished.

Recently, a registered medical practitioner (RMP) of Chikkadpally in

the city was learnt to have been dispensing the so-called cure but

has been on the run ever since the police began trailing him.

The practitioner has a license from the Indian Medicines and

Homoeopathy department to practice but not to give any medicine for

AIDS. He had also advertised in newspapers and electronic media about

the medicine.

The enforcement wing of the Drugs Control Administration went after

at least two self-proclaimed doctors who had a cure for AIDS in the

city in the recent past.

" The quacks beat a hasty retreat when our inspectors go after them, "

K Janaki Reddy, Director, Drugs Control Administration told The Times

of India. The quacks surface at other places and carry on their

business. But whenever the quacks advertise about their cure of AIDS,

the Drugs Control Administration tries to track them down and contain

their activities, Janaki Reddy said.

Commissioner of Indian Medicines and Homoeopathy, T Janardhan Naidu,

said dispensing with an AIDS cure since there is no cure for the

disease, amounted to cheating. " We will take strict action against

those indulging in this, " he said.

The Indian Medicines and Homoeopathy department gets letters from

people saying they have discovered a cure for AIDS but no one gives

samples or mentions what the ingredients are. " There is no cure for

AIDS and therefore no one will be allowed to dispense with any

medicine as cure for it, " Janardhan Naidu said.

Though various government agencies are after quacks who dispense with

a so-called AIDS cure, none of them have been prosecuted so far.

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