What does the media say when the King chooses Ayurveda?

A reflection on bias and sensationalism when it comes to “alternative” medicine.

King Charles III during his Ayurveda treatment in India

Last week, Dr. Danilo Maciel — an integrative physician in Brazil and a deep connoisseur of Ayurveda — shared a powerful reflection on King Charles’ decision to include Ayurveda as part of his cancer treatment:

“The king’s decision reignites an important debate. Not about the treatment’s effectiveness, but about the epistemological arrogance that still dominates the way we approach knowledge in health.”

For centuries, Western medical knowledge has monopolized what is considered valid and scientific, relegating millennia-old systems like Ayurveda to a marginal position — treated as exotic, superstitious, or pseudoscientific.

The media and the medical establishment rarely keep up with the latest validations and advancements of these practices. And the way the news was handled followed a revealing pattern:

What does the media say when the King chooses Ayurveda?

A quick review of the headlines shows recurring terms such as:“Alternative health beliefs,” “faith in snake oil,” “alternative therapy,” “alternative medicine,” “faith,” “holistic healer,” “who believes in healing power,” “hocus pocus medical cures,” “risking life.”

These words carry built-in judgment.

“Alternative,” for example, already places Ayurveda outside a presumed center of legitimacy. What is “alternative” is, by definition, not the standard, not the main path — it is peripheral, optional, less reliable. “Beliefs” and “faith” shift the discussion to the realm of religion and irrationality, erasing the textual, systematic, and clinical foundations of Ayurveda. And terms like “faith in snake oil,” “risking life,” or “hocus pocus medical cures” border on disrespect.

Some of these terms even appear in quotation marks, adding layers of irony and detachment — as if the reader is meant to interpret them with skepticism or mockery — influencing public opinion and shaping the perception of thousands of people.

This language is not neutral.

It reflects a persistent bias against anything outside the biomedical paradigm — even when the “alternative” is supported by thousands of years of continuous practice and, increasingly, by scientific studies.

Why isn’t it making headlines in 2025 that the World Health Organization officially recognized Ayurveda by including it in the ICD-11 — a historic step toward true medical integration?

Let’s remember:

Modern medicine, as we know it, has existed for about 200 years.

Ayurveda has over 5,000 years of clinical tradition and ongoing practice.

And yet, it is Ayurveda that gets labeled “alternative.”

Dr. Danilo mentioned a 2021 study published in the Journal of Integrative Cancer Therapies showing that Ayurvedic practices helped reduce fatigue, anxiety, and inflammation in cancer patients. This kind of data was completely absent from media coverage. There was no effort to contextualize the king’s decision within the expanding field of integrative oncology, where Ayurveda plays a growing role.

I felt the need to bring this reflection here because, in addition to working with Ayurveda today, my background is in communication — and I know very well how this system operates.

In 2022, I tried to edit the Wikipedia page on Ayurveda. I dove deep into the internal discussion threads. What I found was surprising: there’s a clear resistance to any attempt to present a more neutral or balanced view of Ayurveda.

I examined previous versions of the page and the conversations between editors. Before 2019, the content was considerably more balanced. But from 2019 onward, there was a shift. The language became more pejorative, and all attempts to correct the bias were swiftly discarded.

And this doesn’t happen only with Ayurveda — the same pattern repeats with Traditional Chinese Medicine and other ancestral healing systems. There seems to be a “greater force” — hard to name, but easy to notice — working to keep this type of knowledge discredited.

Wikipedia’s Co-founder on Bias in the Platform

The real question here is not whether Ayurveda cures cancer — that’s a simplistic question designed to create polarized and sensationalist headlines.

The real question is: how can we incorporate these ancestral systems to treat the whole person, addressing the root causes of imbalance?And beyond that: why do we keep denying patients the right to integrate what makes sense to them — within a safe, supervised, and potentially beneficial approach?

Healing should not be about exclusivity — it should be about coherence.

When a healthcare system respects multiple forms of knowledge, it becomes more humane, more complete, and more effective.

When systems clash, we lose.

But when they build bridges, we heal.

In Switzerland, I see more integration each year — but in many places, it’s still a complex issue. What’s it like where you are?