On X, Dr Cyriac Abby Philips is waging a war—countering what he calls misinformation about alternative medicine. It’s coming at a great cost, he tells us. Every day, he appears to be dodging a new bullet: “From the benign and wasteful online trolling, harassment and abuses, to actual, realistic physical threats and vile legal recourse and litigation”. “In a country deeply invested in traditional, cultural and religious outlook towards healthcare, [this] can become a harrowing experience,” says Philips, who is senior consultant and physician-scientist, clinical hepatology at The Liver Institute in Kochi.

With 204K followers, the hepatologist who goes by the handle, TheLiverDr, is among the more popular health educators on social media. But his takedown of the government-backed AYUSH (ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddha and homeopathy) has left many miffed. His X account was also briefly suspended when Indian multinational personal care and pharma firm Himalaya Wellness had secured a court order against him,  restraining him from posting “defamatory remarks” about their products. “They are all pseudoscientific systems of alternative medicine that borrow principles for diagnosis and treatment from primitive observations, faith-based healing, illogical theories, un-testable hypotheses, magical thinking and sometimes practices that are an insult to rationality and intelligence,” he tells mid-day in an email interview.