Current status

In 1970, the Indian Medical Central Council Act was passed by the Parliament of India, which aims to standardize qualifications for Ayurveda and provide accredited institutions for its study and research.[33] In India, over 100 colleges offer degrees in traditional Ayurvedic medicine.[9] The Indian government supports research and teaching in Ayurveda through many channels at both the national and state levels, and helps institutionalize traditional medicine so that it can be studied in major towns and cities.[34] The state-sponsored Central Council for Research in Ayurveda and Siddha (CCRAS) is the premier institution for promotion of traditional medicine in India.[35] The studies conducted by this institution encompass clinical, drug, literary, and family welfare research.[35].

The Bachelor of Ayurveda, Medicine & Surgery (BAMS) is the basic five-and-a-half year course of graduation. It includes eighteen different subjects comprising courses on anatomy with cadever dissections, physiology, pharmacology, pathology, modern clinical medicine and clinical surgery,Pediatrics, along with subjects on Ayurveda like Charak samhita, history and evolution of ayurveda, identification and usage of herbs [Dravyaguna], and Ayurvedic philosophy in diagnostics and treatment. The practicing graduates are governed under different state laws.[citation needed]

Many clinics in urban and rural areas are run by professionals who qualify from these institutes.[33] Mukherjee & Wahile cite World Health Organization statistics to demonstrate the popularity of traditional medicine as the primary system of health care.[36] In Sri Lanka, the number of traditional Ayurveda practitioners is greater than trained modern medicine professionals.[37]
[edit] Outside India

Academic institutions related to traditional medicine in India have contributed to Ayurveda's international visibility.[38] Kurup (2003) comments on the role of Gujarat Ayurved University:[38]
The Gujarat Ayurved University has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with nine Ayurvedic institutes functioning in Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, Argentina, and Germany to coordinate and facilitate the globalization of Ayurveda through academic collaboration. Earlier, Medical (Ayu) Institute of Russia had signed the MoU with the government of India, in which Gujarat Aryurved University is also one of the implementing authorities.

Ayurveda gained recognition in the Western world as medical scholars, notably Frank John Ninivaggi MD of Yale University School of Medicine, researched and outlined its various postulates in one major textbook suitable to Western academic science.[39] In the United States of America, the NIH NCCAM expends some of its $123 million budget on Ayurvedic medicine research. In addition, the National Institute of Ayurvedic Medicine, established by Dr. Scott Gerson, is an example of a Ayurveda research institute.[40] Gerson has published part of his work on the antifungal activities of certain Ayurvedic plants in academic journals.[41] The postulates and history of Ayurveda have also been outlined by foreign scholars such as Dominik Wujastyk in the United Kingdom.[42] Questionable practices in research involving financial gains have resulted in the questioning of some of the research and cases such as the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health have involved litigations.[43][44]
[edit] Journals

A variety of peer reviewed journals focus on the topic of ayurvedic medicine, including the Theoretical and Experimental Journal of Ayurveda and Siddha (TEJAS; published between 1981 and 2008 as Ancient Science of Life)[45] the Journal of Research & Education in Indian Medicine (JREIM),[46] AYU (published quarterly)[47] and The International Journal for Ayurveda Research (published quarterly).[48] None of the journals are PubMed indexed.
[edit] Patents

In December 1993, the University of Mississippi Medical Center had a patent issued to them by United States Patent and Trademark Office on the use of turmeric for healing.[49] The patent was contested by India's industrial research organization, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (C.S.I.R), on the grounds that traditional Ayurvedic practitioners were already aware of the healing properties of the substance for centuries, making this patent a case of bio-piracy.[50] The Government of India had become involved in promoting traditional medicine by 1997.[51] Sharma & Bodeker report on the various government activities in relation with Ayurveda:
In India the government became involved in traditional drug production when the Central Drug Research Institute patented two new drugs from ancient Ayurvedic formulas. One, a mixture of black pepper, long pepper, and ginger, allows for the dosage of the antibiotic rifampicin to be halved in the treatment of tuberculosis and other mycobacterial infections. The other is a memory tonic produced from the traditional plant called brahmi. Overseas patenting of turmeric and products of the neem tree caused controversy in India and other nations. In August the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled a U.S. patent on the wound-healing properties of turmeric when the Indian government proved that records had existed