BANGKOK – Responding quickly to the H1N1 pandemic, Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai announced today that the FDA has completed fast-track approval for a special amulet which would protect all who wore it from catching the virus. The amulet is being manufactured by the Nakhon Si Thammarat temple, which gained notoriety a few years ago for creating the Jatukam Ramathep amulets which were believed to bring fortune to its owners.
However, Witthaya assured the public that this time was different.
“I have spoken to the abbot himself, and he has promised me that this amulet really works,” he said at a press conference. “These amulets are made with the hair of the revered monk Luang Pho Daeng of Wat Choeng Khao, who lived to 90 and whose body has never decomposed.” It is believed that the monk’s special powers may have also included resistance to flu.
Some health professionals, however, have expressed skepticism that an amulet could actually provide medical benefits.
“No clinical trial has ever established a correlation between the wearing of jewelry and increased resistance to pathogens,” said Dr. Gary Mendergart, an epidemiologist for the International Red Cross in Thailand. “The very idea is, in fact, quite unscientific.”
These and other criticisms have been dismissed as anti-Buddhist and further evidence that outsiders simply do not understand Thailand.
