Jolly Ninshima (not real name) is now resigned to her fate. Everyday she has to cut off her hair from the head, owing to the drugs she took a few months ago to enhance her looks.

But even with this obviously cumbersome routine, Jolly considers herself lucky because she was ableto stop stray hair from growing allover her body which was the case in the few months following the pills!

Jolly is one of the growing numbers of Ugandans suffering from weird and sometimes deadly trauma arising from the urge to enhance their beauty by taking pills that stimulate hormones to enlarge their breasts, grow hair or hips?

The trend, which is picking on due to the persuasive, sometimes misleading advertisements in the Ugandan media, has tended to target women, with minimal focus on men who want to enlarge their manhood.

For Jolly, who was in her senior six vacation last year, it all started when her peers persuaded her there was a remedy for her 'bad' short hair. As attractive as having good hair can be to a woman, Jolly badly wanted to change her looks, that she immediately visited the private beautician in Kampala.

The beautician, who operates from Kampala road, told Jolly that there were absolutely no side effects if she took the prescribed drugs and that her hair would grow longer in a matter of days.

But a few days after swallowing the last pill, jolly was shocked to realize that stray hair had started to grow all over her body including the face.

Puzzled and shaken, Jolly quickly returned to the shop in tears and asked that a solution be found. The attendants gave her an injection after paying another hefty amount that helped to stop facial and body hair from sprouting like mushrooms.

Some have died
So far Jolly is lucky to be living, but for Maria, who was a first year student of Ndejje University, the drugs took her life.

She died just two weeks after taking a cocktail of drugs including those for sliming, breast enlargement and pimple reduction. Her post-mortem, according to her friend Alice, indicated that liver dysfunction, attributed to the drugs, had resulted into her death.

Perhaps because the urge to enhance one's beauty by going to such lengths may be considered by society as a deviation from God's creation, many of those who suffer severe side effects do not want to talk about it publicly. Instead they suffer or die silently.

Not the Health Ministry's Business
Apparently, while the problems border on health issues, Ministry of Health officials say such things as body enhancement drugs fall outside their area of concern.

The Commissioner for Clinical Services in the Ministry of Health Dr. Jacinto Amandua acknowledged that some people are dying as a result of consuming the tablets. He was however categorical in saying that issues to do with drugs for beauty purposes do not fall in their docket but rather the Ministry of Trade.

Asked whether the Ministry is not concerned about the health effects of these drugs, Jacinto said: "No no. That is the Ministry of Trade which licenses traders of those drugs. We know some people are dying silently. Our role is only to educate the people which unfortunately we're not doing."

Amandua however argues that there is need for serious awareness creation to enable people to make informed decisions.

In another interview with The Sunrise, the Acting Permanent Secretary, in the Ministry of Health (MOH) Dr Kenya Nathan Mugisha however lamented, that despite their strong will to tackle the problem, the Ministry is currently not mandated to supervise such operators as beauticians, herbalists and reflexology practitioners.

Mugisha cited the rapid mushrooming of such practices across the country and the corresponding disastrous health consequences to call for the creation of an independent body that can help regulate the complimentary medical arena which includes beauty products & practices, reflexology and herbal medicine.

There are five organs that oversee the health industry. These are Uganda National Drug Authority (UNDA) charged with the screening of all drugs/ chemicals, The Medical & Dental Practioners Council regulating practices of doctors and dentist, The Nurses and Midwifery Council, overseeing practicing nurses and midwives, The Pharmacy Council policing practices of all pharmacists while The Allied Professional Council caters for all other (health) players outside the domain of the above regulators such as Orthopedic officers (those dealing with bones), Radiographers (those handling x-ray machinery) and Lab technicians.

"It is absurd that there is no regulatory body to take care of complimentary medicine," Mugisha said. He added that the situation is aggravated by the lack of a legal framework to back any form of regulation even if it were existent.

"If someone claims to have medicine to enlarge people's bums for example which law are you going to use to stop him?" he muses.

Kenya however told The Sunrise that the Ministry is currently in a process of drafting a bill which he said won't only be meant for solving the problem but will also go along way in bringing sanity among herbal medicine players and reflexology.

But Kenya expressed worry that the situation is likely to remain as it is for at least the next two years before the yet-to-be proposed bill is expected to become law.

A combination of factors including persuasive advertising, lack of sufficient awareness about the drugs, weaknesses regulation and monitoring by the national standards agency (UNBS) conspire to worsen the problem.

Others may also argue that weaknesses in parenting, peer pressure, and the effect of western culture that adores big boobs, long hair and light skinned people, are contributing to women's particular vulnerability.

Lesser risks with professional touch
Some, like Margueritte Tandekwire, the Chairperson of Uganda Hair and Beauty Alliance, an umbrella body that brings together all beauty practitioners, also lament the absence of a regulatory body to check quark practitioners and fake products.

Tandekwire regretted the lack of concern on the side of government about the silent trauma and vast effects of fake products on hundreds of people's lives.

"I have been a lone voice in the wild on these reckless practices. I have spoken until it stopped making sense," Tandekwire said before warning that the problem is not about to abet because the industry has lately attracted high profile people in this country who've poured millions of shillings to import unregulated cosmetic products.

She added that the quack practitioners ride on the realised fact that the [beauty] industry has since time in memorial been a trillion dollar industry whereby it is known, people especially women, would do anything even at the risk of their own lives for beauty.

Calling for sanity among the women folk, Tandekwire warned that she has witnessed numerous women who have gotten cancer and other deadly side-effects like bald heads, burnt skins, sexual dysfunctions, because of failing to seek professional help. blog comments powered by Disqus

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