Alarm as number of Tanzanian women bleaching skins for vanity increases

Tanzanian authorities on Tuesday expressed concerns over the increasing number of women who bleach their skins for vanity, saying the situation plunges more into health risks.

Damas Matiko, northern zone manager from Tanzania Foods and Drugs Regulatory Authority (TFDA) said: "As the authority, we're striving to remove from shelves and destroy banned cosmetic products that many women use to bleach their skins. But the challenge still remains."

He said women are at risk as most of them use those harmful cosmetics without thorough information on their negative effects.

"This problem is not only here in northern zone, it's a countrywide problem," he said.

"At the moment people using banned products have made a turnabout and are using prescription creams and ointments in their quest for lighter complexions,"the official added.

The expert said that most reputable skin lighteners are expensive,"Because of this, the market is vulnerable to over-the-counter, unregulated and unsupervised use of skin lighteners."

According to him, the use of these creams can result in irreversible skin damage. The majority of illegal skin lightening creams can contain between 8 percent to 15 per cent of hydroquinone.

The official said that the use of hydroquinone in cosmetics has been banned since 2001.

"The government has banned soaps, skin creams, ointments and other products that contain deadly intoxicants such as steroids, chloroforms, mercury, sulphur, hydroquinone and 11 other listed harmful chemicals," said Matiko.

He added that despite the ban, traders have been smuggling the compounds and selling them clandestinely due to high demand.

"But manufacturers of these creams have been cheating by not printing the list of active ingredients on packages containing creams and ointments.

"This means we now have to start afresh taking products to the government chemist laboratories to test whether they contained the intoxicants or not," explained the TFDA manager.

Worse yet is the fact that some people have been going to chemist shops, dispensaries and hospitals to buy permitted and legally imported skin treating products which again they misuse through over-application or smearing them over their skins without following instructions.

This, according to TFDA, is as dangerous as using poisonous chemicals.

"As a result we are now experiencing increasing cases of skin and liver cancer, women missing their menstrual cycles and some giving birth to retarded children. Other problems include brain tumors, sudden unexplained deaths, and prostate cancer for men and increased facial hair for ladies," warned Matiko.

TFDA Laboratory Director, Charys Ugullum said that major cities in the country including Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Mwanza, Mbeya, Moshi and Tanga lead in cases of ladies bleaching their skin with banned cosmetics being destroyed by TFDA on a weekly basis, but also the number of cosmetic shops are on the rise, with many of the banned creams also being sold at beauty parlors or hair salons. Enditem