The global attention is now focused on unlocking the secrets of traditional systems of medicine as practiced in Asia and Far East. Rational investigations are underway in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, India and other countries to subject traditional treatments to scientific scrutiny. Taiwan recently unveiled a US$ 100 million plan to modernize its traditional medicine while National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA spends US$ 220 million annually on research and training in alternative medicines from Asia, America and other parts of the world, according to Dr KV Raghavan, former director of IICT and president, Andhra Pradesh Academy of Sciences.

There is growing evidence that traditional Asian medicines can produce tangible benefits for sufferers of diseases that continue to confound the western schools of medicine. Their effectiveness range from containing the side effects of chemotherapy for cancer to the treatment for containing the crippling pain of arthritis. People's respect and confidence in herbal drugs is fast growing in all developed countries. This is evident from sales of herbal and alternative medicines in USA reaching US$ 40 billion mark in 2002. To keep in tune with the market demand, the FDA introduced more flexible regulations to register herbal drugs in USA. A new class of botanical drugs has been created to accommodate multi-component herbal formulations.

In case of several traditional remedies, modern science is yet to fully understand their working even though there is less doubt about their efficacy. Probably the scientific approach missed the point that the leading traditional therapies treat the human body as a complex whole instead of viewing it as a multiple organ system for curing a specific ailment. It is evident that practitioners of traditional medicines are now more favourably inclined to subject their drugs to rational scientific evaluation, he added.

At global level, efforts are on to integrate modern and alternative methods of therapy after making a rational analysis of their complementary strengths and weaknesses in treating various diseases. India has taken a positive role in this matter. The present policies of Indian government are favourable for integration of modern and alternative therapies, standardization of their quality and use of modern diagnostic tools for traditional treatments.

He said that integration of modern and traditional medicinal practices is vital to achieve medicinal pluralism and to effectively bolster public health programmes. The huge infrastructure established by governmental and non-governmental agencies in India for education, research and clinical care has to be put to use by providing new opportunities to alternative systems of medicine to share and undertake specific medical and public health functions, the legality of which has been upheld by the Apex Court of the country in 1998.

Cancer is one of the top three killers in developed countries. The market size for anti cancer drugs has crossed US$ 10 million level in USA alone. North America, Europe and Japan fall under high incidence category with more than 5 million cases per annum accounted by stomach, breast, colon, liver and cervical cancers. Despite worldwide efforts to find permanent cure for cancer, modern medicine is yet to succeed fully. Worldwide, more than 1500 research projects have been sponsored by governments and large drug companies to find more viable answers to cancer treatment.

The Indian System of Medicine (ISM) has reasonably well documented therapeutic practices for treatment of certain types of cancer by Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani Schools. The Indian experience in integration of modern and traditional systems of cancer treatment will be very unique from the entire world. India has immense potential to capture the world markets if innovations are introduced in developing new anti-cancer drugs taking advantage of complementary roles of modern and ISM through well co-ordinated national endeavours. Such an effort has already started and is poised for higher momentum in the next couple of years, said Dr Raghavan.