Paper short abstract:

This paper presents ethnographic examples from India on the perceptions of safety among Tibetan and Ayurvedic doctors processing mercury for use in medicines. Perceptions of mercury’s toxicity and how safety concerns are negotiated in the wake of the global UN ban of mercury will be examined.

Paper long abstract:

When the global legally-binding treaty to ban mercury (the 'Minamata Convention', initiated and steered by the United Nations Environment Programme), was signed by over 120 nations in 2013, many Tibetan and Ayurvedic doctors in India were confronted with an alien (global) paradigm of toxicity based on the atomic nature of mercury (Hg) and had to re-think their own safety concepts. This paper presents ethnographic examples of how Tibetan and Ayurvedic doctors in northern India, who use processed mercury (largely as mercury-sulphide) in their medicines, have responded to this ban and the safety concerns it has raised. Through euro-american media coverage on heavy-metal toxicity of their medicines, Tibetan and Ayurvedic physicians and their institutions have also felt compelled to communicate and 'prove' the safety of their mercury-containing medicines according to these global standards. Practitioners interviewed felt threatened to continue practising their processing methods that have been considered 'safe' in their authoritative texts and clinical practice for centuries. I examine how the media coverage and the UN ban have changed their discourse of safety and if and how such changes have affected their research, safety management, and actual pharmacological practices. I argue that these events have led to a conflict between medical epistemologies resulting in a syncretic mix of resistance and acceptance. For example, resisting the safety doxa of the atomic mercury model has also reinforced the identities of medical practices being hailed as specifically 'Tibetan' or 'Ayurvedic.'