Divya Sathyaraj, daughter of ace actor Sathyaraj and a popular nutritionist in the city, is in shock after a traumatic incident that took place at her clinic recently.
“As a clinical nutritionist I meet a lot of medical representatives at my clinic after I am done with consultation. I do not prescribe medicines, as I am not a doctor, but I prescribe vitamins, health drinks and supplements for health and nutrition,” Divya starts the narration.
She continues, “A couple of days ago, manufacturers from the US (a white man and lady, and an Indian ) walked into my clinic. From the minute they walked in, they kept talking about their political connections in India and then about their multivitamin and fat burner, which could bring about dramatic improvements in overall health.”
Speaking about the events that unfolded henceforth, she describes, “When I told them that I do not prescribe anything that does not have scientific validity, they said they were working on the approvals. When I went through the ingredients, I was shocked! The tablet contained an overdose of vitamins, which could lead to hypervitaminosis (a condition of abnormally high levels of vitamins). The patient could have nausea, blurred vision, liver enlargement — and they may not even realise it, as people think nothing could go wrong with just a multivitamin pill; their fat burner also had a lot of harmful ingredients.”
Divya goes on to say that when she said she couldn’t prescribe the tablet, they tried to bribe her. “I was very upset and told them that patients come to us with a lot of faith and it is inhuman to kill that faith, I do not care about money. After that the man asked, “Since when did therapists in India get so concerned about scientific validity? I will take my product to other celebrity nutritionists in Mumbai and they will be willing to prescribe it.” I was very angry and told them to get out of the clinic,” she claims.
She further adds angrily, “It was late in the evening and my receptionist and I were the only two women around, they started threatening us saying, “You Indians do not know how to treat foreigners, I am very well connected with politicians in India, how can you be disrespectful to foreigners? You people are unethical.’”
This is when Divya tried to make things clear — “I told him that no one could bribe or threaten me to prescribe a medicine that is not safe and that money will never be important to me. I was shocked that they had the courage to come to our country to market their product and criticise Indians and Indian doctors.”
On a concluding note, she says, “What would happen to all their major cosmetic products without the Indian market? As a nutritionist and citizen of the country I believe we should work hard towards the idea of a nation where good health is priority.” Divya also added she will be soon registering a complaint with the police.
