By Abdu Rafiu
We owe our dermatologists a whole world of gratefulness for awakening their fellow citizens to the dangers of skin bleaching to health. Their association launched a patriotic campaign early this week, visiting markets and speaking on the grave harm skin bleaching does to a person’s health, indeed to a woman’s health since they are more into the skin decolouring practice than men. It is delightful to see members of the association distributing pamphlets on the risks of skin bleaching at Trade Fair, Ojo in Lagos, for example.
Obviously, those who indulge in the practice did not live in the times of legendary musician, James Brown who, fighting racism on the basis of colour in the United States, said with his head raised high: “I am Black and proud.” One of the ladies on the campaign train said the widespread notion that “fair is better” should be “deconstructed; it is not. There are beautiful people of different shades of brown everywhere. There are beautiful black models. In the entertainment industry there are beautiful chocolate colour models.”
The nation-wide campaign is triggered by their concern that there are rising cases of skin damage linked to bleaching in hospitals and clinics. The dermatologists listed the dangers of bleaching as stripping the skin of its protective functions leading to infections, premature aging and long-term complications which are often irreversible.
What can be more distressing in the case, in the words of Professor Dasatima Altraide, than seeing children and toddlers recruited into the unwholesome and disgusting practice. It is worse among girls in the 20 to 24 years age bracket. Professor Altraide is the president of the association. Adults, teenagers and even elderly women are in the practice. As the Yoruba would say, “Ko si arugbo n’Ghana!” literally translated to mean there are no old women in Ghana; they fight hard using all kinds of creams and chemicals to remain delectable never-get-old ladies. The behaviour is so nauseatingly prevalent that Nigeria, according to Professor Altraide, has been labelled as the skin bleaching capital of the world and the skin lightening house of the world. The dermatologists said wrong words are employed as a way to discontinue amplifying the notion that Nigeria is the discolouring capital of the world, words such as toning, glowing, whitening and lightening, all of which seek to hide what the practice really is—skin bleaching! Professor Altraide said some ladies who may not use cream ask for injections, and there are tablets which are also used.
The dermatologists have taken their campaign to some secondary schools to enlighten the students of the dangers of bleaching. The campaign has also been spread to some communities. They advocated healthy diet, hydration and stress reduction as panaceas for healthy living.
The lack of care of the physical body, the outermost part being the skin, or damage to it, is proof of ignorance of the place of the body in our lives. Can it be for nothing that mankind as well as animals are endowed with bodies? A body is a gift from the Creator. It encases the soul, which in turn is the cover for the spirit. Part of the soul which is the bridge between it and the body is what is called astral body, the model after which the physical body is formed. At death both the soul and the astral body are pulled out but the astral body stays close to the body and both decay together, while the soul marches on deep into the Beyond called the Ethereal World. The energy paths from the spirit run through the astral body, thus animating the body. We learn in higher knowledge that as the astral body is forming, good and evil radiations, karmaically caused by the human spirit through the exercise of its free will, are connected to it through the help of the stars. The spirit is the core of a human being, the real man, and it works through the cloaks that the soul, the astral and the physical wrappings called bodies are. The body should not be enfeebled through damage to the skin, premature aging and complications which, as the doctors say, are often long-term and irreversible.
The radiations from the spirit together with those of the soul and the skin form a halo of radiations which manifests as aura. It stands to reason that any damage to the body must out of inherent functionality dilute the rays and affect the aura. The aura of a noble man is violet while that of an evil man is dull yellow. There is welcoming peace and unmistakable joy around a noble man or someone who is working upon himself to live in goodness, purity and love, and you would, unprompted, want to bow! It is like the presence of a noble woman. Her presence makes men to adjust their seats, their ties or caps, the entire attire as the case may be in order to be approved by her when she does not even utter a word and she is not aware of any fuse over her. Unconsciously many a man senses being put off by the dull aura of an evil man. They just feel ill-at-ease in the close vicinity of an evil person and quickly move away at the slightest opportunity.
When the skin is damaged, the emanations from the body are impaired. Nature beings took great pains to form the body of man from the abundance that is all around us, all around an expectant mother—from the radiations of what she eats—grains, tubers, legumes, fruits– the water she drinks, the radiations of the soil, of the air and wind and the radiations of the stars, the moon and the moon she absorbs. All combine to also nourish the body.
It is easy to see why making the work of the Nature Beings a nullity through abortion of the growing body in the womb can have devastating consequences. It is tantamount to murder, and dashing of hopes of a prospective baby-to-be with dire consequences, part of which may be childlessness in another earthlife. As I did state last week, where procreation takes place, it a supplication to the All-Highest, the Creator, to be granted the Grace to have a child as a guest and gift to a family, to the right mother. With the procreation, souls begin to hover around the woman. Any of them that has the same nature with her in accordance with the Law of Nature, the Law of Homogeneity, that like must attract like, seeks to gain entry into her womb when pregnancy has gone half-way. The Nature Beings prepare the womb for the needs of the incarnating soul. If she had committed an abortion before, in the present earth life or in any of the previous ones, souls may avoid her, unsure of what she may be up to: Is she going to abort the pregnancy again this time? Believing that their hopes may be dashed, souls keep away from her. Yet, there are millions and thousands upon thousands of souls pressing for an opportunity of another earth life to make up for their shortcomings and guilt in previous earth lives they must urgently settle before the cycle closes!
From the foregoing, it is easy to see how wonderful the efforts of the dermatologists going out on campaign to save our bodies are. The theme of their campaign was: “No to skin bleaching. Prevention is better than cure.” They tag it: Own Your Body; Embrace Your Skin.” They say skin bleaching is public health concern with medical and social concern. Their aim is to curb the harmful practice.
The issue of what we ingest and the damage we do to our skin and therewith to the body reminds me of the issue of MSG I commented upon in 1992. The laudable effort of the dermatologists contrasts sharply with the divided house of scientists on MSG. Monosodium Glutamate, (MSG) as they call it, is a sodium salt of glutamic acid from which bouillon cubes or food flavourings are made. Nigerian television at the time was awash with advertisements singing the high praises of MSG and vigorously urging everyone to ignore poison pen criticisms making the rounds and, as it is often the case, return to business. At the time MSG, like many other manufactured products, food or chemical, had been suspected to be carcinogenic, that is, cancer trigger.
In a world that is increasingly more conscious of the perils of so-called civilization and modern living and returning to simple old days, sales have been dwindling and business deteriorating. It would seem that people are saying that it makes more sense to sweeten the pot of soup with more fresh onions and tomatoes or to season food with garlic and the likes of them and stay healthy, no matter the cost, than take a bad health risk.
Nigerians themselves, too, would seem to have caught the flu. A leading MSG marketer Marc & Mei Nigeria Limited, sponsored a conference in Lagos earlier in September of that year at which one after the other scholars in medicine and nutrition attested to the safety of seasoning. The conference took place amid frightening reports that some unscrupulous foreigners were importing unregistered MSG in substandard packaging believed to have been tampered with, and that the product was enjoying widespread reputation as a wonderful fabric bleach.
In fact, this was a sore point raised by market women who responded to the eulogies of the scholars. In their simple-minded reasoning, if MSG could bleach coloured fabric white, quick and neat, could it not damage internal human tissue? It was like a question asked in America when reports were published of scientific tests which claimed that a tooth kept in a particular drink for some days softened or partially dissolved. Couldn’t this drink be dangerous to the skeletal system also made of calcium? It was reasoned until the company clobbered such fears in mysterious ways. Representatives of the scientific community said that same month in Lagos that there was as yet no conclusive scientific evidence to support the fears of the market women. However, there had been a suggestion from a scientist that, while there was no scientific evidence that MSG was a bleaching agent, it could be possible that since it is a sodium salt, the free carboxylic acid from the monosodium glutamate could react with chlorine in water to form sodium hypochloride, which is, in fact, a bleaching agent.
The argument went to and forth with some scientists passing MSG as safe and another set of researchers at LUTH countering them. The latter basing their research on the effect of MSG on mise said their findings showed delayed skeletal maturation in new born mice and rats; reduction in reproductive ability in both male and female- mice; poor eye sight in new born mice and lastly convulsive seizures in young rats. How should any one respond in a situation such as this when the experts are stoutly divided other than trusting one’s intuition?
Kudos to the senior dermatology practitioners; they spoke with one voice: “Skin bleaching is dangerous to medical and social health. It is not just a cosmetic choice—It is a health risk.”
The Guardian
