THE Tanzania Foods and Drugs Regulatory Authority (TFDA) officials in the Northern Zone have raised alarm in connection with ‘increasing cases of misuse’ of creams initially prescribed for treatments of eczema and other skin disorders.
According to the TFDA Northern Zone’s
Manager, Mr Damas Matiko Nyang’anyi, the authority is working hard to
take off the shelves and destroy banned cosmetics, that many women used
to apply to bleach their skins.
But now, users of these outlawed
products have resorted to applying medically prescribed skin creams and
ointments in their quest for lighter complexions.
“The government had slammed a ban on
soaps, skin creams, ointments and other products that contain deadly
intoxicants such as Steroids, Chloroforms, Mercury, Sulphur,
Hydroquinone and eleven other listed harmful chemicals,” said Mr Matiko.
He added that despite the ban, traders
have been smuggling such compounds into the country and selling them
clandestinely due to high demand. “But manufacturers of these creams
have of late been a little more clever by choosing not to print 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.
But even worse, 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
medical prescriptions.
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, some giving birth to retarded children. Other problems include
brain tumours, sudden unexplained deaths, prostate cancer for men and
increased facial hair for ladies,” warned Mr Matiko.
Some of the banned cosmetic products are
those bearing trademarks such as Jaribu (soaps) Diva Clearing Soap,
Princess Cream, Mont-Claire cream and many others that keep cropping up
the shelves on daily basis with different names.
Arusha City leads in cases of skin
bleaching ladies with the banned cosmetics being destroyed by TFDA on
weekly basis, but also the number of cosmetic shops are on the rise,
with many of the banned creams also being sold at beauty parlours or
hair re-making salons.
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