Quackery, cozenage and double standards

Monday 4th January, 2021

Legal action has been taken against a quack who exploited a large number of cancer patients. The Department of Ayurveda and the police raided his ‘treatment centre’ in Tissamaharama and sealed it, during the weekend. They should have done so a long time ago because many a patient who received treatment from him died, according to media reports. He has been living in clover at the expense of the poor patients if some of his assets shown on television are any indication.

When the western medical system fails to cure cancer patients, it is only natural that some of them look for alternatives, which could be expensive, and self-proclaimed healers claiming to be blessed with super natural powers make a killing. These patients go the way of all flesh, and their families are reduced to penury. This is the name of the game.

It is not only terminally ill patients who fall for medical quackery; others who are required to undergo surgical operations also turn to quacks either due to their fear of the surgeon’s knife or economic reasons, only to realise that they have been taken for a ride. All conmen in the garb of the practitioners of traditional medicine, and operate without the approval of the Department of Ayurveda, must be severely dealt with. The country abounds with them.

What if the quack of Tissamaharama, who stooped so low as to cozen huge profits by exploiting the terminally ill patients, claims that he communicates with a deity, who has revealed the ‘cancer cure’? The world has failed to find a cure for cancer. COVID-19 has also left it groping in the dark. So, the aforesaid quack can ask the health authorities and the police why legal action has been instituted against him for using an untested, unapproved treatment regimen while the government is promoting an untested syrup touted as a cure for COVID-19. He has no doubt endangered the lives of cancer patients, who stopped taking treatment in state-run hospitals at his behest. The distribution of the ‘miracle’ syrup, popularly known as the ‘Dhammika peniya’, has also led to a situation where people’s lives are in danger because those who have ingested it think they are safe and, therefore, do not follow the health guidelines. Besides thousands of people flock where the syrup is distributed free of charge, exposing themselves to the virus and, thereby, facilitating the spread of the pandemic, which has already carried off more than 200 persons, caused the country’s healthcare system to reach breaking point and crippled the national economy. Sociologists have pointed out that such irrational behaviour stems from mass hysteria.

Unlike in days of yore, the transmission of illusions and superstitious behaviours happens extremely fast, at present, thanks to social media, thus causing mass hysteria. One may recall that about 15 years ago, a rumour spread like wildfire that some Buddha statues had started emitting rays. Thousands of people were seen staring at them on the roadside and at temples. Many claimed to have witnessed the ‘miracle’. It was difficult to convince them that the emission of rays was only an optical illusion. After a few days, people lost interest in the ‘miracle’, and stopped statue-gazing. Propagandists of the then Rajapaksa regime sought to make political capital out of the ‘miracle’; they claimed that it was due to the ‘Mathata Thitha’ programme the government had launched to create a ‘sober Sri Lanka’! Ironically, today, the rulers who undertook to battle alcoholism, which is plaguing the country, have come under fire over the issuance of liquor manufacturing licences to their cronies.

The incumbent government stands accused of having engineered the syrup frenzy, as it were, and using the Dhammika peniya to infuse the public with a false hope and distract their attention away from its failure to contain the pandemic and honour its election pledges. It will have a hard time, trying to prove its critics wrong.

The health authorities ought to get tough with all quacks alike. The self-proclaimed healers who do not have licences to practise medicine but are engaged in ‘treating’ patients must be brought to justice urgently. Let there be no double standards.