An AIIMS doctor’s open letter to the owner of a major business house.
Dear Ramdev Yadav ji,
First things first, I decline to prefix your name with Baba for a simple reason. For me, Baba is a reverence reserved for the likes of Farid Shah, Bulle Shah or Rehman (Baba). In my honest opinion, self-proclaimed Babaship (I know it’s not a word) is nothing more than optics for someone like you, a successful businessman. My favorite baba, Baba Farid Ganj-e-Shakar had once said, “If you want the position of a saint, remain away from the king’s family.” How apt, isn’t it?
Anyway. Coming to your recent vulgar mockery of allopathy and allopathic physicians, I can understand your frustration at this uncalled for derision. After all, a sick human is the easiest wager for the healer – I mean healer from any branch of healing. For the vulnerable sick of this country, who have literally been disowned by the state, healers can smell ample opportunities of money heist. Since you like to talk in simple idioms, its like hounds smelling meat. No wonder the pandemic has created enough meat for all types of hounds to come and feast. But Ramdev ji, even hounds respect each other. They respect strength and most importantly, know their limitations and vulnerability. It’s a different matter that worse than hounds are jackals. They are the cowards who howl when hungry, who howl when angry and who howl when they fear that a stronger opponent is out there and will get away with the half-eaten carcass. Let us vow to not behave like jackals at least!
As for your very boorish condemnation of allopathy and doctors, I wouldn’t be wrong to assume that your arrogance got the better of you in that moment and you got carried away. What else can explain such silly comments from a smart businessman like you? Or were you naïve enough to be unaware of the backlash from my fraternity? I don’t think you are that stupid Yadav ji. Everyone guards their bread like you do, doctors included. By the way, lets put this on record that what you said in that video about doctors and allopathy was not only unscientific, but smelled of ignorance on your part. Ignorance smeared with hate. When ignorance combines with hate, it becomes such a toxic mix that it even singes the hater. In fact, I have seen such ignorance from you on many other occasions. But let us not discuss those in the present moment because I sense you are already under significant pressure for your silly comments, else why would you apologise to my fraternity and that too on a mere friendly rap on the knuckles from the health minister of the country who also happens to be an allopath.
What intrigues me about your condemnation of allopathy is not your lack of knowledge but your self-vainglory. You are so absolute about your science of Ayurveda that it makes me look at all you do with suspicion. Absolutism is the biggest enemy of rationality. Your claims to cure diseases as serious as cancers is laughable Ramdev ji. Do you even realise that you have become a laughingstock for the world when you claim to treat blood cancer in umpteen videos? And yes, it is possible that a few patients of blood cancer (while in your care) might have gone into remission, but to be so sure of cure is nothing less than unsullied foolishness. I know you have monetary interests when you claim so but then absolutism is what will finally get the better of you and your 9500 crore rupees business empire. I would thus advise caution.
Doctors protest against Baba Ramdev’s remarks on allopathy at AIIMS hospital in New Delhi, May 25, 2021. Photo: PTI
Tall claims, whether of Ayurveda, homeopathy and allopathy, need scrutiny and validation. Your absolutism is what endangers your field and your words. We live in a world of suspicion. To question the doctor is correct. To conclude her/his actions without the scrutiny of science is a sin. For example, many liver specialist friends of mine have told me about the disastrous effects of the chemical giloy, which I am told is also used in your wonder drug Coronil. They are seeing significant toxic effects of giloy on the liver. But they are still in the stages of scrutinising their results. They are seeking validation. They are questioning their own belief before this could be brought into public domain. That’s how allopathy works, Ramdev ji. That’s how science works. To be honest, I know that somewhere deep in your heart you too respect allopathy and science. Why else would you bring an allopathic doctor on stage every time you claim a cure for a disease. I have seen so many videos where you ask him to validate what you claim. Strange indeed!
This is not a battle of ‘my field versus your field’. Even if your interests are monetary, science and rationality should win. I am with science and the only thing that science has taught me is to suspect my own hypothesis, to discard absolutism and to bring facts to scrutiny. I suppose as a businessman who has such a phenomenal success in the field, you should really mind your business. It is my humble request to you that you should leave science and rationality to us. Remember, history has a knack of catching up with everyone, be they an unethical doctor, an unjust ruler or a counterfeit Baba.
Professor Shah Alam Khan, Department of Orthopaedics, AIIMS, New Delhi. Views are personal.
Since trials to determine the drugs’ safety and efficacy are either underway or have ended with negative results, experts have questioned their approvals.
As coronavirus cases continue to rise in India, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has approved five drugs to treat COVID-19 patients.
Out of these, two are antiviral drugs – Remdesivir and Favipiravir, and the remaining three – Dexamethasone, Tocilizumab and Itolizumab – are for easing symptoms.
Since trials to determine the drugs’ safety and efficacy are either underway or have ended with negative results, experts have questioned their approvals. Almost all the drugs are highly-priced too.
Here’s a list of the drugs you may be prescribed and the controversies they are mired in.
Brazil’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and the destruction of Amazon is being led by military men who are failing on both fronts. By associating itself too closely with the president, the Brazilian military loses public trust and tarnishes its image.
Sao Paolo: For 21 years, starting 1964, when Brazil was run by a military dictatorship, the men in uniform used propaganda to project an image of “Great Brazil” to the population. For those who refused to fall in line, the army had a grim message: “Brazil: love it or leave it”.
The military, which was forced to go back to the barracks in 1985 as the economy dived and people jammed the streets calling for democracy, has generally been above criticism. But now, as the biggest South American country faces a perfect storm of a healthcare disaster, economic collapse and social implosion, the most militarised government in the world, run by Jair Bolsonaro, a former paratrooper, is feeling the heat.
Last week, amid growing coronavirus infections and deaths, a judge of the Brazilian Supreme Court dropped a bombshell by saying that the army was associating itself with a “genocide”. “The army is associating with this genocide. It is not reasonable. It is necessary to put an end to this,” said Justice Gilmar Mendes as he blasted the government for packing the Ministry of Health with the military men at the cost of healthcare experts.
For the past two months, the ministry is being run by General Eduardo Pazuello, a serving officer with no healthcare experience. Since Bolsonaro fired Luis Mandetta, a popular health minister and his successor in the matter of 30 days, the president has shown no inclination of appointing a full-time minister. After Justice Mendes blasted the military, Mandetta also criticised the “military occupation” of his former ministry at the time of a pandemic.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro in late May. Photo: Reuters
All the president’s military men
Before becoming president, Jair Bolsonaro had been a federal Congressman for more than three decades. But he never gave up his fascination for guns and admiration for military dictatorship.
In January 2019, when Bolsonaro moved into the presidential palace, he appointed many retired and serving generals in his Cabinet (the Brazilian law allows armed forces personnel to hold civilian positions). Out of 23 ministers in the federal government, 10 are from the forces. According to the Federal Audit Bureau, there are 6,157 military personnel – in active duty or retired – holding civilian positions in Brazilian government. There are also 1,249 military personnel in health ministry. This data came out this week after another Supreme Court judge warned of the “risks of militarisation” of government.
Brazil’s civil society and media has been raising the issue of militarisation of the government in recent weeks. On Sunday, the country’s top newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo revealed that the presence of active-duty military personnel in government departments grew by 33% since Bolsonaro became president.
From 1990s until 2016, the report said, the military people served only in the Ministry of Defence and Security Offices. But, in the Bolsonaro government, they hold important positions across the departments, ranging from education to health to culture.
In his 18 months in office, Bolsonaro has often used the military’s name to threaten the country’s opposition and institutions like the Congress and Supreme Court and openly participated in far-right rallies demanding “military intervention”. Now, as he faced the biggest crisis of his term, the president turned to the military for support, choosing General Pazuello to lead Brazil’s response to coronavirus. He also appointed another 24 persons with military background in key positions in the Ministry of Health; and ordered the army to mass produce anti-malarial drugs – chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine – for public distribution.
In the past two months, the virus has overwhelmed this country of 210 million people. As of Sunday (July 19), Brazil has recorded 2,099.896 infections and 79,533 deaths. For more than a month now, the number of fatalities has averaged above 1,100 per day.
Gravediggers wearing protective suits bury a coffin at Vila Formosa cemetery during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Sao Paulo, Brazil, July 16, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Amanda Perobelli
In such a grim scenario, Brazil today stands like an international pariah, with its citizens allowed to enter few countries (Even Uruguay and Paraguay have closed their frontiers with Brazil). Bolsonaro, who has refused to even console the families of COVID-19 victims, is being blamed directly for this catastrophe. Last week, after Justice Mendes’ rebuke, Bolsonaro placed a call to the judge amid reports that the army wanted to “dissociate” itself from the Ministry of Health.
It has now emerged that in his chat with the president, Justice Mendes warned him about the possibility of the case of pandemic negligence being taken to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The judge reportedly told Bolsonaro that he had heard about this possibility in some conversations in Europe.
Coming from a top judge, the term “genocide” became a front-page headline in Brazil but the word has been in discussion for some time. Just last week, Global Justice activist Monique Cruz denounced Brazil at the UN Human Rights Council. “Brazilian prisons are a fundamental part of the State’s genocidal project,” she said, condemning the government for not releasing the prisoners as the virus spreads in its over-crowded jails. In April, a group of Brazilian parliamentarians sent a letter to the WHO director-general, accusing the President of “flirting with the risk of genocide”.
Also, in recent months, several human rights groups have filed a complaint at the ICC against Bolsonaro for causing a “risk of genocide” of indigenous people in the Amazon region. This too puts the Bolsonaro – and Brazilian military – in a tight spot.
The flag and the order
The Brazilian flag is one of the few flags with a slogan on it. The green and yellow flag has “Order and Progress” written on it, inspired by Auguste Comte’s motto of positivism. It is a much-loved slogan of the Brazilian army which proclaims itself to be a force which brings order when the country is in trouble. Though Brazil became a republic in 1889 with an uprising against the Portuguese empire, the military continued to play an important role even when power was in civilian hands.
In a book on Brazilian armed forces (1975), American political scientist Alfred Stepan traced the formation of the “guardianship character” that the Brazilian military has assumed throughout history. Establishing itself as a “moderating power” with the fall of the empire, Stepan argued, the military “assumed full control of the country in 1964, when they were the supreme power”.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro observes a ceremony to remove the Brazilian National flag, as he walks outside the Alvorada Palace, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Brasilia, Brazil, July 15, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino
During the dictatorship, argued the American academic, for the Brazilian army, “security and development were linked” and the “conquest and vivification of the Amazon region and its uninhabited borders was a matter of national security”. After the country returned to democracy in 1985, the army has been focused more on the world’s biggest rainforest amid claims that foreign powers wanted to take away the Amazon from Brazil. The men in uniform appointed themselves as the guardian of Amazon.
The script went awry with the election of Bolsonaro, who repeatedly showed contempt for the forests and its inhabitants during his election campaign. Since his election, the destruction of the Amazon has gained speed. According to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the deforestation in the Amazon reached the highest level in five years last month, with an area equivalent to 1,00,000 football fields – almost 1,034 square km, cut down in just one month.
The ground situation in the Amazon is chilling. Thousands of illegal miners –an estimated 20,000 just in the Yanomami Territory—are bringing destruction and death to the rainforest. According to the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (ABIP), 517 indigenous people have so far died from COVID-19 infections. Since the virus hit the region, there have been 15,180 cases spread over 129 ethnic groups – many of them from uncontacted tribes. A new study has shown COVID-19 could infect up to 40% of the Yanomami people.
Even amid fears that the coronavirus could wipe out indigenous groups, the Bolsonaro government has only added to their misery. Last month, the Congress passed a bill that recommended actions to combat the advance of the disease in the indigenous population, but Bolsonaro vetoed the clauses which guaranteed access to drinking water, disinfectants, hospital and ventilators machines to these groups.
With such crucial services blocked, the death rate among the tribes – already up by 14% as compared to 2019 – could spike in an uncontrolled manner. In such a tragic scenario, indigenous leaders have often used the term “genocide” to describe what is happening to them.
Call it a genocide
The Amazon fires made global headlines last year. Now, the situation has become worse. In May this year, Bolsonaro sent troops to fight outbreaks of fire and illegal deforestation in the region. This has backfired, with the environmental inspectors calling the armed forces’ performance as “clumsy, inexperienced and even malicious”. A recent report in Intercept Brasil described how the “militariSation of the fight against deforestation in the Amazon has not prevented records of fires and deforestation” despite having a budget of 1 billion reals, which is 10 times the amount given to the country’s main environmental inspection agency, Ibama.
With the army failing to control the fires and not able to protect the indigenous tribes from the killer virus brought to them by illegal loggers, the forest communities are facing an onslaught they have little protection from. In an open letter to Jair Bolsonaro last month, global activists, intellectuals and celebrities warned the indigenous communities in the Amazon were facing a “genocide”. “Five centuries ago, these ethnic groups were decimated by diseases brought by European colonisers … Now, with this new scourge spreading rapidly across Brazil … [they] may disappear completely since they have no means of combating COVID-19,” they wrote.
A woman wearing a protective mask and a face shield talks on the phone as people walk at a popular shopping street amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Sao Paulo, Brazil, July 15, 2020. Picture taken July 15, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Amanda Perobelli
This talk of “genocide” has again brought into picture the country’s supreme court, which has in recent months shot down many of Bolsonaro’s decrees against social distancing and rapped him on the knuckles several times for his “anti-democracy discourse”. A supreme court judge, Luís Barroso, last week instructed the government to form a “Situation Room” to combat the pandemic among the indigenous people.
At the first meeting of the Situation Room on Friday (July 17), tensions between the indigenous associations and federal government came to the fore as they “became targets of attacks and offences by members of the (Jair Bolsonaro) government”. According to reports in the local media, the Secretary of Indigenous Health of the Ministry of Health, Robson Santos da Silva, made an aggressive speech, dismissing the accusations of “indigenous genocide” as “cynical” and “frivolous”.
Just like its response to mass deaths caused by coronavirus, the Bolsonaro regime remains in denial about the charges of genocide. But the pandemic and the Amazon destruction have cast a shadow over the Brazilian military for its failure on both the fronts. On the healthcare front, Gen. Pauzello, who brought in 26 men from the barracks to replace renowned specialists in the Ministry of Health, has been an unmitigated disaster.
On the Amazon frontier, being managed by Brazilian vice president, Hamilton Mourao, a retired general, the government has failed to make any improvement in the ground situation. “These two negative examples do not prove that the military are worse managers than civilians. But they prove that they are not better, as most of them imagine. This belief that they are above other Brazilians is very bad for the armed forces,” wrote Chico Alves, a top columnist, in an article this week. “They pride themselves on not rejecting missions given by their superiors. In a battlefield, where any disobedience can cause great damage, this quality is worth gold. In civilian life, however, it is not enough to accept the tasks, it is necessary to handle them efficiently.”
In its entire history, the Brazilian army has not fought a single war on its soil. Unlike the militaries of Chile and Argentina, the Brazilian forces did not pay any price for the dictatorship-era atrocities. But now, by closely associating themselves with a president, whose popularity is declining as the country goes into a free fall, there has been a rupture between the people and the militarized government. When he began his term, Bolsonaro had the approval rating of 46%; a survey last week shows him at 26%. He has lost the support of 45% of people who backed him in the 2018 election.
Cabofriense players are temperature checked as they arrive before a match, following the resumption of play behind closed doors after the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Photo: Reuters/Ricardo Moraes
But Bolsonaro is not sinking alone. He is dragging the men in uniform with him. According to a survey by Valor Economico, the top business newspaper in Brazil, there has been an increase in negative references to the military on the social media. In April, as the virus gained speed, 54% of the posts about the military were negative. In 2018, as per the survey, 55% people believed that in a situation of an increase in crime, a military coup would be justified. In 2020, it has dropped to 25%. If the reason for a military intervention was high unemployment, in 2018, 25.4% people believed that a coup was justified. Now, when the joblessness is at a historic high, the number is down to 15%.
Bolsonaro government’s complete negligence of the two crises have shattered the military’s image of being a “guardian” of Brazil. Now, questions are being asked about their role in running the government.
In a hard-hitting piece, titled “What will be left of the Brazilian Army?”, published in Epoca magazine this week, columnist Denis Russo Burgierman raised serious questions about the army’s legitimacy.
“If during such a threat to the nation’s security, the action of the armed forces is so pathetic, it is not illegitimate to ask the question: after all, what is the Brazilian Army for? What is it even protecting us from? With a budget of $15 billion and with no war in sight (the plague is good enough), is it not time the country discusses the assignment of its military more seriously?” Burgierman wrote.
Brazil’s crisis it too serious to be left to its military.
Shobhan Saxena and Florencia Costa are journalists based in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Like a character from a magic-realist soap opera, the Brazilian president has turned his country’s crisis into a spectacle where he is “saving” the people from a disease that he himself calls a “fantasy”.
Sao Paulo: In the 1973 soap opera called O Bem-Amado (The Well Loved), broadcast on Globo TV, a cunning mayor of a small town in Bahia unveils a plan for a grand cemetery to impress the citizens. After much expenditure, so goes the plot, the cemetery is ready but it awaits inauguration as nobody is dying in the town. Consumed by his vanity, the mayor plots to kill someone, but fails. Out of desperation, the mayor summons a reformed assassin, asking him to take a life so the cemetery can be inaugurated. As fate would have it, in the final episode of the series, the criminal ends up killing the mayor; and the cemetery is finally opened with much fanfare.
Broadcast during the years when Brazil was under a military dictatorship, the town in the soap opera became a microcosm for the country, where the generals used mega projects like big bridges and events like football victories to dazzle the citizenry and keep the nation distracted from poverty and democracy. Like other South American countries, several Brazilian soap operas used the technique of magic realism, where the mundane becomes spectacular and reality looks like fantasy, to show the state of the nation under military jackboots.
Tales spun with magic-realism make delightful reading. Living those stories, though, is another matter. Since February, when the SARS-CoV-2 virus reached Brazil, it has been living through one such continuous moment, with President Jair Bolsonaro offering a “miracle cure” for the virus which he calls a “fantasy”. As the virus ravages the country, images of ICUs running at full capacity, the health system collapsing due to the number of cases, gravediggers working non-stop and children begging on streets have become ubiquitous. Despite these facts, the president still considers the virus a fantasy.
In February, when the virus had literally shut down the city of Wuhan in China and was causing panic in Italy, the mood here was different. It was carnival time. The weather was balmy, beer was flowing like water and Brazilians and foreigners – many from pandemic-affected European countries – were partying in jammed streets and packed bars.
Though there were enough signs – and warnings from the WHO – that the virus was headed towards this region, Bolsonaro was busy picking fights with his adversaries. First, he launched a torrent of insults at a female journalist for revealing that the president had shared a video on WhatsApp in support of anti-Congress demonstrations, scheduled for March 15, despite the risk of virus. Then he lashed out at Pope Francis after the pontiff pleaded for the “protection” of the Amazon rainforest. “Well, the pope may be Argentinian, but God is Brazilian,” Bolsonaro said, ticking off the Pope for an “attack on Brazilian sovereignty”.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro gestures after a meeting with Brazil’s Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque in Brasilia, Brazil January 15, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Adriano Machado/File Photo
On February 25, Brazil reported its first case of COVID-19 – a man who had just returned from Italy. As more cases were reported from the upper-class neighbourhoods of Sao Paulo, the mood began to turn grim. As private hospitals struggled with the patients and the media demanded a coordinated response from the federal government, Bolsonaro looked the other way. When he could not ignore the situation anymore, the president reacted by calling the virus a “fantasy” propagated by the media. As the caseload graph rose, Bolsonaro dubbed it a “hysteria”. After cases were reported from several states, he called COVID-19 a “little cold” that needed little attention.
In the first week of March, the federal health ministry announced that the “national scenario has changed”, and states like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro started shutting down non-essential businesses – but Bolsonaro couldn’t care less. He took off for Miami to have dinner with US President Donald Trump at his Mar-o-Lago resort, where they discussed how the two countries could work together and discussed Venezuela.
Within days of the president’s return, a member of his delegation tested positive for COVID-19. In the next few days, 19 of the 22 people who went to Miami tested positive. Amid rumours that the president himself was infected, Bolsonaro continued to move around, tweeting videos of himself visiting shops, shaking hands with people and encouraging them to “continue to work”.
As Bolsonaro appeared in public with a runny nose and a fit of cough, it reinforced the suspicion that he was indeed infected. Even as two tests came back negative (though he would not release the details of the examination, conducted under false names, for weeks), a vast majority of Brazilians remained unconvinced. Bolsonaro then tried to convince the nation by claiming that “nothing would happen” to him as he was an athlete in his youth. Then he questioned the death toll, saying that states were rigging the data to make “political use” of the matter. He claimed that eventually “70% of the population will be infected”. Finally, he argued that it was the “destiny of all human beings to die”.
As Bolsonaro’s claims neither convinced the people nor brought down the number of infections, the president began to look for new tactics. Around this time, on March 25, Trump came up with the idea out of nowhere that “hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are possible treatments for COVID-19”. With demand for these medicines going up, Bolsonaro latched on to the idea. On March 28, he posted a tweet claiming “chloroquine was a cure” for COVID-19. Twitter removed the post the next day.
But Jair Bolsonaro had found a magic cure that he would hawk to 210 million Brazilians.
A healthcare worker holds a packet of hydroxychloroquine sulfate, azitrophar and chloroquine diphosphate at the riverside community Santo Ezequiel Moreno in Brazil. Photo: REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
Here comes the magic
At the beginning of April, Brazil had recorded more than 1,000 deaths. As hospitals across all 27 states treated patients with severe cases, the president appeared at a bakery in Brasilia, hugged his supporters and posed for selfies without a mask. His message to the people was clear: it was alright to keep the shops open, it wasn’t necessary to follow physical distancing norms and there was a medicine for the “little cold”. At the same time, a Brazilian Army laboratory was going full steam, producing some 2.2 million chloroquine tablets, with plans to increase production to 1 million per week.
With the president openly violating WHO-recommended norms and promoting an unproven drug, the then health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta, a doctor by training, publicly rebuffed Bolsonaro by releasing a report that concluded there was no evidence that “hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were effective against COVID-19”. On April 13, a Brazilian study into the effect of chloroquine was halted after patients developed heart complications. Three days later, Mandetta was fired. “Life has to go on. Brazil has to produce. You have to put the economy in order,” said Bolsonaro, as he brought in a new health minister.
In early May, it was clear to everyone that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were not working. Even as several international studies rejected the drugs, Bolsonaro continued to push it. On May 7, just when Brazil’s coronavirus death toll touched the 10,000 mark, Bolsonaro and his ultraliberal finance minister Paulo Guedes warned that the “quarantine measures needed to be relaxed or the economy could collapse”. Under pressure to recommend the drugs, the new health minister resigned on May 15. The next day, the toll climbed to 15,000 and Bolsonaro went out to a gathering of his supporters, who demanded the “closing down of the Supreme Court judges and Congress”.
On May 22, in a bombshell decision, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge asked the government to release a video of the cabinet meeting where the president allegedly threatened to dismiss the chief of the Federal Police. The meeting, presumably called to discuss the COVID-19 crisis, had nothing to do with the pandemic, the video showed. Played on national TV for hours, it showed how Bolsonaro and his ministers were thinking of subverting all processes amid the pandemic. Leading from the front was the president himself, launching into a profanity-laden diatribe against everyone trying to “incriminate my family” into criminal cases.
Guedes, who cut his teeth into unbridled capitalism in Chile under Augusto Pinochet, vowed to move ahead with economic reforms – a euphemism for privatising state enterprises. The environment minister suggested passing laws that can “end all protection” for the Amazon rainforest because the media was “busy with the pandemic”. And the education minister Abraham Weintraub called on the president to “arrest” the Supreme Court judges as those “vagabonds” were threatening the government.
Even for a country assailed by a health crisis, the video was a shocking revelation of how dysfunctional the Bolsonaro government was. As the president faced questions about his angry outburst at the meeting, he turned back to chloroquine, making it a culture war issue between his far-right supporters and others. “Those on the right will take chloroquine, those on the left will take tubaína [a local soft drink],” Bolsonaro said in a tweet reminiscent of Trump.
Bolsonaro and his government have never shown any resolve to fight the virus. Since the beginning of the crisis, their aim has been to force the states to “reopen the economy”.
Demonstrators take part in a protest in support of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in Brasilia, Brazil June 28, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Adriano Machado
End of the world
In 1996, when Brazil was easing into a democracy, Globo TV broadcast another magic-realist soap opera called Fim do Mundo (End of the World). The story is based in a small city where a psychic announces the impending end of the world. Meteor showers, floods, storms and lightning follow the announcement. The city’s residents, as the story goes, believe that the apocalypse has arrived and try to fulfil their suppressed desires. But the world does not come to an end and everyone faces the consequences of their actions.
The 18 months of Jair Bolsonaro as president have been a rollercoaster ride for Brazil. In this period, everything progressive about the country has been rolled back and all democratic norms have been threatened by the president and his sons – known as Clan Bolsonaro – and their far-right supporters. But like the soap opera, karma seems to be catching up with them.
In the past month, the carefully crafted myth of the Bolsonaros has unravelled. The president’s eldest son, Flavio, a senator, is under investigation for links with a notorious militia from Rio de Janeiro. Bolsonaro’s other two sons are facing probes for running an “office of hate” that spreads fake news. Weintraub, the former education minister, ran away to Miami last month fearing prosecution in a case. His replacement had to drop out before he could be sworn in as it was revealed he had lied about his educational degrees.
The Bolsonaros have been hit the hardest where it hurts the most – on social media. In a case being overseen by the Supreme Court, far-right bloggers and militants have been arrested, their social media accounts deleted and their finances cut off. In a matter of weeks, the social media presence of Bolsonaro supporters has dropped after Facebook shut down some accounts. They have lost much of their power to make fake news trend with the help of bots.
The president’s whose popularity is now limited to his far-right base, as the upper- and middle-classes who backed him in the 2018 election have largely deserted him.
Jair Bolsonar’s sons Eduardo and Flavio. Photo: REUTERS/Adriano Machado/File Photo
Poster boy of a miracle drug?
In the worst scenario possible for Bolsonar, the demand for hydroxychloroquine has nosedived as hospitals have become wary of using the drug. He stockpiled the drug but now there are no buyers. Last month, the US FDA revoked its emergency-use authorisation for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine and Trump dumped two million doses on Brazil as a “goodwill gesture”.
After the Brazilian president attended a party at the US Embassy on July 4, where no one was wearing face masks, Bolsonaro reported some symptoms of COVID-19. On July 7, he announced he was infected with the virus. Within hours, his office released his test report – in his real name this time. But he remained dismissive about the virus. “This virus is almost like a rain. It will hit everyone. Some people have to be more careful. That’s all,” he said, taking off his mask in the middle of the press meet.
In March, when Bolsonaro had denied he was infected, a large number of Brazilians hadn’t believe him. Now, when he says he is infected, people are doubting him again. In the last 24 hours, Brazilian social media circles have been abuzz with theories that Bolsonaro is trying to prove COVID-19 is nothing more than a “little cold” that can be cured with hydroxychloroquine. Bolsonaro himself lent weight to such doubts on Tuesday when, during his 21-minute press conference, he mentioned hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine 17 times.
On Tuesday evening, he appeared in a Facebook video popping a hydroxychloroquine pill and claimed it was his third dose. “It is working. I’m feeling very well,” he said, shoving the tablet into the camera. These gimmicks have only intensified doubts.
“Although chloroquine has no proven efficacy for the treatment of COVID-19, Jair Bolsonaro takes advantage that he tested positive to advertise the drug, trying to show that he has already improved because of the ‘miracle drug’,” Leonardo Sakamoto, a respected Brazilian columnist, wrote in an article on Wednesday. “By offering a magic and cheap medicine as a solution, the President of the Republic wants to weaken the quarantine and push for the country to return to normalcy.”
With close to 45,000 new infections and 1,000 deaths every day, Brazil is far from any semblance of normalcy. But that hasn’t stopped its president from promoting a drug for a virus he doesn’t take seriously.
Shobhan Saxena and Florencia Costa are Sao Paulo-based journalists.
The disclosure comes a day after the government issued a gag order against Baba Ramdev’s company Patanjali Ayurved from advertising a drug as COVID-19 cure.
Mumbai: The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) said it found 50 campaigns by ayurvedic and homeopathic drug makers offering a cure for COVID-19 in April alone and had flagged them to the union government for action.
The advertisements were across media platforms and were found to be violating Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) order dated April 1, 2020, prohibiting publicity and advertisement of AYUSH-related claims, the self-regulatory body said in a statement.
The disclosure from ASCI for April comes a day after the government issued a gag order against Baba Ramdev’s company Patanjali Ayurved from advertising a drug as COVID-19 cure within hours of him launching it.
ASCI said the AYUSH Ministry had sought its help to alert them about such advertisements and that it launched a drive to act against such misleading advertisements claiming prevention or cure for COVID-19.
The body also made public the list of the 50 companies found advertising the COVID-19 cure or prevention in April.
The list also includes a slew of entities advertising homeopathic medicine Arsenic Album 30, which is being used widely as a COVID-19 prevention drug.
No big brands featured on the list.
The ASCI said it also flagged 91 cases of a potential violation of Drugs and Magic Remedies regulations to the AYUSH Ministry. The list had companies claiming a cure for diabetes, cancer, sexual problems, lifestyle ailments like blood pressure and hypertension.
Meanwhile, Hindustan Unilever’s advertisement for its brand ‘Fair and Lovely’ Advanced Multi Vitamin has also faced ASCI flak for misleading by omission.
ASCI received a complaint against the brand and found that the print advertisement showing image enhancement effects such as brightening/lightening was misleading. The advertiser, while admitting to using minor image enhancement, did not specify the image enhancement done by them.
Other major brands which have faced the ASCI’s flak during April include Asian Paints, Reliance Industries, Tata Motors, FCA India Automobiles, Grofers, Makemytrip and Indigo Airlines for various concerns.
Celebrities who were found to have not done due diligence in advertisements making misleading claims included actors Sachin and Supriya Pilgaonkar for their ad for Tirumalla Oil, badminton player Saina Nehwal’s campaign for Rasna and actor Parineeti Chopra for Bajaj Consumer Care, it said.
ASCI investigated complaints against 533 advertisements, of which 115 advertisements were promptly withdrawn while evaluation of the remaining 418 advertisements led to complaints against 377 being upheld, it said.
Earlier this month, remdesivir was given emergency use authorisation by the USFDA.
Jubilant Life Sciences Limited, among other companies, has entered into a “non-exclusive licensing agreement” with Gilead Sciences – the maker of the remdesivir drug – to manufacture and sell Remdesivir in India, along with 126 other countries.
Earlier this month, remdesivir was given emergency use authorisation by the USFDA. Recent studies have shown that patients receiving remdesivir had a numerically faster time to clinical improvement. The drug remains investigational but is being seen as a potential treatment for COVID -19.
As per the latest update on the Gilead Sciences website, five generic pharmaceutical manufacturers based in India and Pakistan will further expand the supply of remdesivir. The agreements allow the companies – Cipla Ltd., Ferozsons Laboratories, Hetero Labs Ltd., Jubilant Lifesciences and Mylan – to manufacture remdesivir for distribution in 127 countries.
