Skin Bleaching: FG Laments Rising Cancer Cases, Says 80% Nigerians Affected

Kuni Tyessi in Abuja

The federal government lamented the rising cases of skin cancer resulting from excessive use of bleaching creams. It said about 80 per cent of Nigerians had been affected, and more disturbing was the realisation that they were not aware of the side effects of the corrosive ingredients in the bleaching creams.

Director General of Raw Materials Research and Development Council, Professor Nnanyelugo Ike Muonso, made the revelation yesterday in Abuja at a workshop organised by Tropical Derma Research and Training Institute, which centred on skin care research.

Muonso said, “We also have problems with our skin because there is an epidemic here in Nigeria, topping the rest of the continent

“As a matter of fact, skin problems, Africa has more than 80% of its women with deep bleaches, skin problem. About 80% of Nigerians. Some do not even know that they have very serious skin problems. But statistics have it that at least 80% of Nigerian women bleach.”

He, however, disclosed the government had trained some people to obtain samples of skin problems across the country, stating that Nigeria has enormous raw materials to deal with that challenge.

Muonso stated, “So, it is a challenge on its own because of the epidemic nature of the problem. If you leave that untreated, over time, if you do not solve that problem, over time we are going to have degenerations and things like, we also have epidemics in terms of skin cancer and other associated problems.

“So, yes, that is the reason we convened this training program, which is to train our staff on how to collect samples of skins to be able to identify the nature, the characteristics, the forms of skin problems that we have in Nigeria.”

A medical aesthetician, Dr. Edith Gibson, said one of the reasons Africans bleached was to have an even skin tone.

Gibson said, “The majority of women, African women, black women, just want even skin tone. They don’t want to be able to take off their clothes and have different complexions all over their bodies.

“They want their face, their stomachs, their feet, whatever it is, to be uniform.”

She also said, “only about 15 to 20 per cent of women would want lighter skin at any cost, that is at the cost of their health.”