By Nkechi Onyedika-Ugoeze, Abuja GUARDIAN NEWS
Seeks media support on awareness
National Agency for Food and Drug Administration And Control(NAFDAC) has urged the media to champion the campaign against the skin Bleaching Pandemic by providing Nigerians with the right information to make the right decision about safeguarding their health.
Acting Director General of NAFDAC, Monica Eimunjeze who made the call in Abuja to a sensitization workshop for health journalists on the danger of bleaching creams and regulatory controls in Nigeria, decried the proliferation of skin Bleaching creams and products in the country that has assumed alarming proportion to the detriment of the majority of the unsuspecting Nigerians.
She noted that most of the bleaching creams out there are not registered by the agency, and so, could be harmful to the body. The NAFDAC boss stated that some of these bleaching creams had also gone through the regulatory process on the list of license items that are available in the record of the agency.
“There are those who are clandestinely in the market in which the agency is yet to effect the regulatory control, and Nigerians must be careful about those creams. We see dangers inherent in using those creams products that are not in our regulatory process, so we are collaborating with health journalists to help us increase awareness of the products that have not gone through the regulatory process on the impact these could have on their health”.
“When you use a product that has chemicals that could affect the body in many ways or systemically cause a reaction on the skin and could affect the organs”.
“There are many consequences such as kidney failure, and liver damage from an accumulation of toxic chemicals within the system, so we want people to be aware of possibilities and try to modify their behaviour”. Although, people have the right to make choices but you need to make informed choices that will guide you and not the one that will hurt you”.
Eimunjeze stated that a lot of creams are produced that many don’t know the formulation knowledge in which the creams were made, adding that such creams are toxic to the body.
She vowed that the agency would not allow that to continue to happen, saying that NAFDAC has clear knowledge of the formulation of those under the agency’s regulation.
Eimunjeze also maintained that there was a need for reasonable Nigerians, particularly social scientists, to examine and look at the reasons some men go for white or fair women.
“This notion comes along with the way people perceive themselves to make them more receivable or acceptable in the society”.
She stated that the examination was necessary in order to make those bleachers re-orientate themselves to the realities of life.
She disclosed that the bleaching problem was not peculiar to Nigeria alone, but a global issue that needed to be discussed.
She condemned the idea of bleaching totally, adding that there are creams that are approved and formulated with specific the colour one has and that this is more acceptable than bleaching the body.
The DG also talked about organic products which are perceived as natural, saying that not all organic products are good for the body if it is not under regulation. In his welcome address, the Director of Public Affairs, Abubakar Jimoh expressed delight over the concern of the harm caused by bleaching creams by the federal government that has necessitated the national media sensitisation campaign and regulatory controls.
Jimoh seized the opportunity to call on the media as they are the right vehicle and conveyor belt for evidence-based information to broadcast the campaign to the public, to take the lead in this bid to help rid the nation of the bleaching pandemic across Nigeria.
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