Skin Environment : Some Blacks Want to Lighten Theirs

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing a ban on skin-lightening products because of potential health risks. If this regulation is approved, blacks that hate their dark skin will be miserable. Although their mental health might suffer, the rule should be helpful to their physical health. How could anyone not like chocolate? Of course, people not hating their skin color use the creams to treat freckles, age spots and other discolorations. AAEA will support this rule.

Hydroquinone in the skin lightening creams could be carcinogenic and sometimes leads to skin-disfiguring conditions. A disfiguring condition caused by using skin bleaching creams, Ochronosis, has been well documented. FDA wants to restrict the products to prescription only. Hydroquinone in skin lightening products has been limited to 2 percent in South Africa to reduce the ochronosis risks. Apartheid must have really caused some self-loathing there as it did here. FDA banned another skin-bleaching drug, ammoniated mercury, in 1990. Michael Jackson's Vitiligo is not uniform so he must supplement with creams to get uniformity. We hope he does not hurt himself. (Source: AP)