When Greed and Spurious Research Contaminate Cow Urine

This comprehensive essay on cow urine is being serialized on this website. The first two parts dealt with the traditional usage of cow urine in alternative systems of medicine, particularly Ayurveda, and the extent of misinformation around it. At this link, you can visit Part I of this essay: Cow Urine: Tradition, Beliefs, and Scientific Evidence Part II of the essay is linked here: Cow Urine: An Elixir or a Liquid Fit for the Drain?

In the present part (Part III), the author deals with the commercialization of cow urine and claims that are dished out as scientific evidences in favour of cow urine. We shall see how these two come in the way of a fair, unbiased examination of the health benefits of cow urine. This will be followed, in the next part, by research findings and inferences that can be drawn from the available facts and figures.  

COW URINE: AN ELIXIR OR A LIQUID FIT FOR THE DRAIN? - Part III

When Greed and Spurious Research Contaminate Urine

Manoj Pandey

Till a few years back, some companies selling traditional medicines and Ayurvedic products had been trying to popularise cow urine as a medicine or a cleansing agent, but it remained a low-selling product. 

The recent interest in alternate systems of medicine has led to increased adoption of cow urine as a potent therapy for many ailments. This has also been helped by the pathetic efficacy of the modern system of medicine in curing chronic and terminal diseases.   

During COVID-19, when the mainstream system of medicine failed to offer effective remedies against the virus, all sorts of traditional medicines were being explored. On one hand, researchers were genuinely looking for a solution in any possible traditional medicine; on the other, touts and fake news purveyors had a field day attributing magical properties to all types of odd or unusual things, including cow urine, and then exploiting human gullibility. There is no document or authentic research available to show that cow urine helped in the prevention and/ or cure of COVID-19. Yet, cow urine was promoted - and is still being recommended - as a potent immune booster and germ killer effective against fatal diseases. 

URINE MORE EXPENSIVE THAN MILK!

With COVID-19, if the firms selling traditional/ Ayurvedic medicines according to prescribed norms found a new clientele, a new crop of cow entrepreneurs arose. Novel, supposedly effective and harmless, branches of alternative medicine took birth, with names that resonated with a new class of users, such as cowpathy, cow urine therapy, and panchagavya therapy. One organization, calling itself a pioneer in cow urine therapy, has expensive ‘kits’ for all major diseases, and it even offers ‘superspeciality treatment’ by administering cow urine with certain herbs. 

If you search the web for the expression “A healthiest and safest way to boost your immunity system” (sic), you will be served a website touting itself as an inventor of “cow urine therapy” and selling cow urine products that can cure the deadliest diseases the humankind has ever known.

All sorts of marketing gimmicks are used to sell ‘premium’ cow urine: promoting exaggerations and fallacies, misquoting scriptures, conducting spurious ‘research’ and showcasing it, and resorting to influencer marketing in the media and social media.

Now, like FMCG products such as toiletries, over-the-counter medicines, and tonics, cow urine has become a branded product with proper market segmentation. While ordinary cow urine is sold for Rs.15 to Rs.30 a litre near cow rearing centres, urine of desi cows (= indigenous breeds) sells at much higher rates, and its ark (=distillate) sells at even higher prices. Rates of cow urine supposedly from desi cows that graze on organically maintained grasslands are as high as Rs. 1500 a litre, even more. Herbal cow urine formulations in which holy basil, cardamom, and some other aromatic herbs have been added, and ark in which some herbal medicines have been boiled, sell for astronomical prices. A quick search on the web throws up an international brand selling a concoction of gomutra with tulsi in 20 ml vials for over a thousand rupees!

Going by the trend of contraband food items flooding the market, one doubts the purity of the cow urine being sold, especially if that comes with fancy names such as Mohan, Krishna, Gokul, and Kamdhenu, and with attractive pictures of Hindu deities and healthy Indian cows. Recall how, some years back, tallow was being sold in tins with beautiful pictures of Lord Krishna playing with cows, before the scam was uncovered. More recently, similar ghee was being supplied to Tirupati temple for making prasadam.

Filth In the Name of Research 

In the next part of the series, we shall see what modern research tells us about the medicinal properties of cow urine. But before that, let me show you what goes in the name of research on cow urine.

For over three months, I have tried to read all research material on cow urine available online, some on a paid basis. I have to share with a deep sense of disappointment that I  found mostly low-quality research papers published in Indian and international journals. The research journals with prefixes such as ‘Indian Journal of…’ and ‘Asian Journal of…’ have not bothered even to cross-check well-known scientific facts before accepting and publishing such papers.

In many research papers by researchers with doctorate degrees and holding senior positions in research institutes, facts and references have been misquoted or selectively quoted. Many such research papers are full of sweeping statements and exaggerations, rendering them unfit to be considered genuine research. Worse, these are getting copy-pasted and re-published as research papers by others, with abandon.

It is obvious that when there is no fact-checking and peer review, baseless conclusions can be drawn in the name of research. In the case of cow urine, even the attribution of Ayurvedic literature is extremely faulty, besides suffering from the researcher’s deliberate confirmation bias.

I am inclined to share and quote two epic examples of supposedly scholarly articles so that you would appreciate the intellectual fakery going on in the field of alternative medicine systems. 

A paper titled “Cow urine therapy and herbal medicinal composition…” purportedly submitted for a patent states that its ‘invention’ (which is nothing but the preparation of a product out of urine from the cow with a hump, with some herbs) can cure numerous ailments. The paper says, “[The cow urine] is quite effective to cure 5000 types of diseases by its regular use. It has by now been ascertained by scientific Analysis that the urine of the cow contains Nitrogen, Sulfur, Sodium, Chlorine… The urine of the cow, contains all such elements in it. Hence, it proved to be a natural and universal medicine to fulfil the lack of necessary elements or to equalize and reduce the increased elements in the body, and it is the quality of the urine, which helps in curing even the most incurable diseases. For patients of cancer, the urine of the cow and essence of dung proves to be the best type of chemo-therapy, which has no side effects…” (sic) 

A prominent firm selling cow urine products at exorbitant rates, which also runs an ‘institute’, claims that cow urine ark (=distillate) is much more potent against some diseases than fresh cow urine, while at the same time claiming that a type of bacteriophage (i.e. a virus that kills bacteria) are responsible for its magical antibacterial properties, unmindful of the fact that no virus can survive the extreme heat used for distillation of cow urine.

You might ask why I am sharing this intellectual filth, instead of coming straight to the correct facts and evidence-based conclusions. There are two main reasons for this: first, I felt the need to expose the nonsense going on in the name of research in the area of all traditional medicines including cow urine; and second, the absence of reliable evidence-based research on the medicinal aspects of cow urine will reduce the sturdiness of the conclusions we draw from the discussion, and I request the readers kindly to bear with me.
To be continued. Next part: Cow Urine: Take It Or Leave It; Not Before You Read It.

This article has been contributed by Manoj Pandy. He does not like to call himself rationalist but insists on scrutiny of apparent myths as well as what are supposed to be immutable scientific facts. Several of his previous articles can be seen under Vigyan and Swasthaya categories on this website.