The Director General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Christina Adeyeye, FAS has warned that women who bleaches their skin risks health dangers such as kidney failure.
Moji, made this known on Thursday in Kano during the flag-off of a 1 day media sensitization workshop on dangers of bleaching creams and regulatory controls.
According to her, 77 percent of women in the country involved in one form of bleaching or the other which has contributed to the rise in cases of kidney failure being witnessed in the country.
Adeyeye, added that skin bleachers are also exposed to deadly diseases such as cancer, organ damages, skin irritation and allergies among others.
She stated that the workshop became pertinent considering the high rate of bleaching in Nigeria particularly among women, with the view that the media will help in passing the message across to the public.
Moji further stated that the recent motion by Senator Oluremi Tinubu on the need for the agency to rise to the tide of bleaching in the country which the Secretary to the Federation, Boss Mustapha mandated them to do so through a memo.
She call on the public to desist from using cosmetics that bleaches, warning those who sell such prohibited products to change business or face prosecution as the agency is stepping up it’s raids on such products nation wide.
Mrs. Anto Ebele, Deputy Director, NAFDAC in her presentation ‘An overview of skin bleaching, the NAFDAC perspective’, said racism, peer pressure, ignorance are some of the major factors responsible bleaching.
She also warned that bleaching by wether by cosmetics or organic products are capable of exposing them to health hazards that can resort to death or permanent deformities.
The Deputy Director, further stated that the proliferation of beauty spa and commercials promoting their products only with fair skin ladies amongst others must be dealt with by the government through legislative actions.