An Ahimsa Crisis: You Decide: Medicine & Vitamins

Not all medicines and vitamins are vegan or vegetarian. For thousands of years, Jains were using naturopathy or Ayurvedic medicines to treat and cure many illness and diseases. Not anymore. With the advent of technology, modern medical and health delivery systems (particularly the allopathic system) uses thousands of medicines, procedures, surgical treatments, vitamins, and supplements. A large number of the modern allopathic system of medicines are derived, directly or indirectly, from animals or animal based products. In many cases, not only are two-four sensed life forms killed or tortured (for example, in flu shots that come from hens and eggs) but five-sensed animals are as well. In addition, many of the medicines and procedures are first developed by using animals for testing.

Recently I read that several Ayurvedic medicines too are not free from animal ingredients either.

For the practitioners of Jain, Ahimsak, and vegan way of life, it is necessary that one should be vigilant and should strive to find alternatives such as cruelty free medicines, supplements, and treatments. There are quite a few such systems available in the marketplace today. Some of these are given names like alternate systems, holistic healing systems, homeopathic systems, yoga, pranayams (controlled breathing), acupressure, acupuncture, or Tai-Chi, for some examples.