After US cancer facility pulls out of IIT-M event, Ramdev may opt out

The conference ‘Cancer prevention and treatment: From Ancient Medicine to Modern Medicine’ is scheduled to start from February 8 at a hotel in the city. 

Though the event organisers said that the yoga guru’s team has confirmed that he would be unavailable to attend the event, the event’s website continues to have to have him as the speaker. 

According to the original programme schedule, the four-day conference begins on February 8 at 5 pm with the Patanjali founder as the chief guest. It is still not known, however,  if his absence is because of the recent controversy. 

When the reports were out that Ramdev — who had earlier claimed that he has cured cancer and HIV through yoga — will be the chief guest; another sponsor MD Anderson Cancer Center, a research facility in Texas, US, backed out of the event. 

In a tweet, the center said, “In the past, MD Anderson has sponsored this conference through its Global Academic Program. But this year, we’re not a sponsor. Our name and logo are being used without permission, and we’ve requested they be removed from promotional materials.” 

But, until Wednesday evening, the website has listed MD Anderson Cancer Center as a sponsor along with Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Department of Biotechnology Bhupat & Jyoti Mehta School of Biosciences and Society for Translational Cancer Research.