Journalists Against AIDS is an excellent informative website on AIDS in Nigeria West Africa.  The aim of JAA is to: 

is to contribute to the prevention, care and control of HIV/AIDS in
Nigeria by providing innovative communication interventions that will
facilitate positive behavior change to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS.

It provides news on HIV/AIDS, regional and national statistics and  resource materials including an active forum. 

The HIV/AIDS status in Nigeria today is estimated as follows:

The population of Nigeria is estimated at 120 million people.

People living with HIV are expected to pay N1000 per month for anti retroviral treatment (ART) from the government’s ART programme which is part of President Bush’s Programme for AIDS relief.  This cost is in addition to lab tests, medication for other illnesses and transport to and from the health centers.    JAA estimates these costs at a prohibitative N42,000 per annum or N100 per day. 

"These costs are far beyond what many of the thousands of people living
with HIV in Nigeria, who are on ARVs, can afford. According to latest
World Bank figures, about 66 percent of Nigeria’s population live below
the poverty line of 1US dollar (N133) per day.

It is total foolishness and criminal that the world’s poorest people have to bear such a huge cost for ART and associated expenses relative to their income,  whilst for people in the West all costs are free.  In addition to carrying the financial burden (many people loose their jobs once there status is known), there is the enormous psycological burden from your community and of course having the disease itself.    The solution for people living with HIV/AIDS is to sell their property, belongings, bodies, beg or simply stop taking the ART. 

People living with HIV/AIDS have petitioned President Obasanjo and his government to drop the patient contribution.

"Based on what we live through in our own lives and what we witness
every day in the healthcare programs we run, we therefore strongly urge
you to graciously drop the patient contribution. We ask you to make
antiretroviral therapy including laboratory tests and the treatment of
opportunistic infections completely free in the Nigerian public
healthcare sector. "We ask you to contribute to the fulfilment of the
Nigerian people’s Human Right to health by making HAART freely
accessible to all those who need it. The Nigerian public, especially
thousands of people living with HIV, whose lives depend on the success
of the treatment programmes, count on your goodwill."

Tags: Nigeria    HIV/AIDS  West AFrica Anti Retroviral Treatment

Reading the Warrior Poet (Audre Lorde’s biography) and the Cancer Journals (Lorde’s essays and poems on her experience with breast cancer) has taken me back to my own encounter with that same
illness that is still today scandalously killing thousands of women worldwide.  It is just over 5 years since I started on my own journey through breast cancer. I say "through" because I am still alive and the cancer has not returned as far as I know so I have passed through
it to the other side.   

My own diagnosis was a kind of slow build up from a cursory breast exam by a well woman nurse which noted that one of my breasts was denser than the other, through to a series of mammograms, x-rays, local biopsy, MRI scan and endless prodding of both breasts, debates between an
incompetent surgeon and (fortunately for me) a competent nurse as to the size and degree of the cancer.  I went from having a lumpectomy to a mastectomy
in about a week which resulted in two (rather than one) operations and the removal
of my lymph nodes one of which was positive.  That’s the medical stuff and
the relatively easy part.  It tells nothing of the despair, anger,
disempowerment and fear that goes along with not just the cancer but the
amputation of a woman’s breast.

Browsing through my journal of that period
(2000/2001) is quite scary as I was in such a state of distress between having
a first operation that cut out a 1/4 of my right breast and a month later
having the full mastectomy.  Those were the hardest 4 weeks of my
life.   My surgeon was wonderful as I was able to talk to him either
by phone or at his office at a moment’s panic of which there were many.
My friends were generally very supportive, some incredibly so.   But
there were also those who I call the "disappeared" who could not face
their own fear enough to give a friend the support she needed.  Not
surprisingly these were men and I discovered that many men cannot deal with
illness or death.  Even my brother and sons could not talk about the
cancer.  I was in the midst of a battle with a spider web of cancerous
growth eating away at my beautiful breast so really I had and continue to have
no sympathy whatsoever for their inability to respond to that.

One of the things that used to drive me
nuts was when people would say “oh it will be alright” or “my sister-in-law had
cancer and she is fine”. How the hell can having your breast amputated and
being injected with red poison be alright? And I don’t care if your
sister-in-law had “it” and is fine now, I am having “it” right this minute and
I am not fine or alright in fact I am thoroughly pissed off, feel like a monkeys
bum and probably look like one too. People who are ill do not need to be
patronized in this way. Talk to me not at me. The whole thing with having a mastectomy is about fear. I could not
visualize myself without my breast no matter how hard I tried; I just could not
see it. All I saw was me turning into a mad woman and I needed my friends to talk with me about that not tell me I would be alright because that just wasn’t working for me.

SpainSomething has happened to me, some change
in the way I feel that is enabling me to write this after all this time.  I
couldn’t have written it last year or anytime before that.  Just being
able to write about my encounter is a sign that I have moved on to a different
place in this battle even though the scars physically and mentally remain
forever present, reminding me that it may but then again it may not be all over
yet.   A process has been taking place over the past three years since
I moved to  Spain and it is only now that I am beginning to recognize it.   

Moving to Spain  three years ago was a major
decision, an escape. I had a fear of returning cancer that left me with so many
insecurities. I needed to find a place to heal myself, my mind and my body. I
had to get rid of the poison of chemotherapy. I needed to detox my life by removing myself from the chaos of London.  Now after three years I have got rid of my additictions: anti-depressants, over eating and drinking.  I have lost 18 kilos; I no logner need my asthma medications, my right arm which used to give me so much pain is now pain free.   

This summer for the first time I stopped
wearing my prosthesis in my swimsuit. Every week over the past 4 weeks we have spent 3 days wild camping at the coast. One day I just decided I didn’t feel like wearing the damn thing and that was it. And it was great – I felt free. The insistence that women
wear prosthesis is a huge part of the “breast cancer industry”. The next sentence after being told I should have a mastectomy was not to worry because I could have a breast reconstruction
at the same time. The plastic surgeon would move in as soon as the breast surgeon had finished cutting my breast off. I was considered a “problem” and “strange”
because I refused to have a reconstruction. The idea of having lumps of flesh
removed from my stomach and stuck onto my chest wall to look like a breast
revolts and offends me. Worse still my left breast would have to be reduced – mutilated – so it would fit in with my “new lump of fat” parading as a breast. I really did not want to discuss any of this stuff either before or after the second operation by which time I then had the added side affects of
chemo.

In “Power vs. Prosthesis” (the Cancer Journals) Audre Lorde criticizes the emphasizing on breast cancer as a ‘cosmetic problem’ which can be solved by the ‘pretense’ of wearing a breast
prosthesis which unlike other prosthesis has no function than to make the woman
“appear normal”. This concentration on the cosmetic

“re-inforces
this society’s stereotype of women, that we are only what we look or
appear………….With quick cosmetic reassurance, we are told that our feelings are
not important, our appearance is all, the sum total of self”

For Lorde the wearing of prosthesis is an
act of “cover up” and compliance with patriarchal forces.

“I refuse to hide my body simply because it
makes a women phobic world more comfortable”….. On the contrary “women who have had mastectomies must become visible to each other… for silence and
invisibility goes hand in hand with powerlessness”.

These are uncomfortable words for women
who have chosen to go the “reconstruction” route or wear temporary
prosthesis. However the point she is making is that the decision to have reconstructive surgery or wear a temporary prosthesis is more often than not a choice made by society rather than women
themselves. Women are forced into
choosing the prosthesis route by the medical fraternity and cancer industry as
a reflection of attitudes within our society towards women as objects. As someone who has had the experience of
being pushed into reconstructive surgery and  then being labeled “difficult” for refusing, I
have to agree with her. As for wearing a
prosthesis or rather not wearing one, I have found this difficult on some
levels and not others. For example at
home or in a “personal space” wherever I happen to be staying not wearing one
is fine. But initially at least “going
out” one breasted was very hard and it is only as time passes that I am
beginning to be much more comfortable and confident about not wearing one. Now I feel it is a choice I make for myself
the same as if I was to choose between casual or formal dress. But it is not an easy one. To not wear a
prosthesis is a liberating act, to write about it re-inforces that liberation
three fold.

The truth of the matter is women do not
want to see one breasted women because it brings them face to face with a
possibility. Men do not want to see one
breasted women because it is a sign of empowerment which openly challenges male
privilege, power and patriarchy. The
breast cancer industry does not want to see one breasted women as it
compromises their millions of dollars in profits. (prosthesis, mastectomy bras,
swimsuits and various cosmetic accessories cost double the price of regular
ones). Politicians don’t want to see one
breasted women because it reminds them and us that they have done very little
to prevent cancer via legislation and regulation of industry and the
environment. The medical profession
does not want to see one breasted women as it is a reminder that research into
causes of cancer has been manipulated and compromised by corporate greed on the
one hand and lack of funds on the other and of course reconstruction is a big
part of the plastic surgeons work.    The more of us that remain invisible to
all of the above including each other the easier it is for the world to
continue in its denial of the extent of breast cancer disease.

What I have presented here is a very
Western experience of breast cancer. The
majority of women in developing countries will of course not have all these
choices, reconstructions and mastectomy prosthesis and clothing are prohibit
ably expensive. Being visible as one
breasted women is overridden by their higher invisibility as poor marginalized
women. So real freedom and power is
about having control over our bodies and being able to make free choices
without being pushed by self-interest groups.

So now here I am publishing all this for
the whole world to read. I hope someone who is suffering will read it and take
something from it however little that will help them through their pain. In October I am moving away from my “idyllic
country life” back to the city. Not a big city like  London  but a city nonetheless to start yet another new life - and still searching for that  "homeland" somewhere.  Now I am able to speak clearly  without fear.  I am no longer afraid.

I found it difficult to find positive non-sentimental life stories on breast cancer - here are the ones I did read.

A Visible Wound - Julie Friedeberger, 1996
Before I say Goodbye - Ruth Picardie, 1998
The Wounded Breast - Evelyne Accad, 2001
The Cancer Jounals - Audre Lorde, 1980.

Because Cowards get Cancer too, John Diamond, 1998 (not on breast cancer but an excellent book none the less)

Audre Lorde and Ruth Picardie died of breast cancer in 1992 and 1997 respectively.  John Diamond died of throat cancer in 1999.

Tags: Breast Cancer

I thought that the practice of
skin-whitening / skin bleaching had ended with the 1980s but apparently not
so.   According to Amina Mire writing in
this weeks Counter Punch, " there is an emerging skin-whitening industry" where expensive skin bleaching products are being marketed
as anti-aging creams for white women  with promises to “restore” and “transform”
aging skins, and as skin lightening creams with the promise of “White Perfect”
for Asian women which is the second largest market after white women. Black women are using the creams less, however when they are used they tend to
be the cheaper and therefore more toxic variety. African women who have chosen to use
skin-bleaching creams have very often suffered devastating disfigurement from
the toxicity of the creams as well as condemnation by society at large. However before we condemn the many Black and
African women who have chosen to use the creams we should note that even today
many communities believe the lighter the skin the better especially in
women. It may not be as overt as say 50
years ago but the colour / hair complex and associated colonial mentality within
our communities still exits.

The article is interesting as it provides a
brief history and background to the skin-bleaching industry which originally
was targeted at both Black women and southern white women in the US as early as 1889
for whom it was marketed as 

“A
white person objects to a swarthy brown-hued or mulatto like skin, therefore if
staying much out of doors use regularly Satin Skin Vanishing Greaseless Cream
to keep the skin normally white”

“Dark” skinned southern and eastern
Europeans were another target market for whom the bleaching creams helped them to  pass
for “white” northern European just in case they did not appear white enough
in a country where “invisible blackness” existed (light skinned Blacks
‘passing’ for whites).  For these women
using the creams could be seen as part of an acceptable day to day beauty
routine. Whereas for Black women there
was no hiding from the “whitening” aspect of the creams which at any rate would
be a giveaway once the hands or other body parts were visible not to talk of
their African features.  

Another interesting aspect of the
skin-whitening market is that the media have always discussed it in the context
of Black women and the terrible damage the creams cause rather than as a global
practice by women of all skin shades and races. Nonetheless the damage to Black women has resulted in the 

“marketing around the world, of a new and,
conceivably, ‘safer’ but high expensive skin-whitening commodities and
combatant technologies”. The main target
of these expensive creams are wealthy Asian women to “modify skin tone” and to
equally rich white women as an “anti-aging therapy”. What is strange to my mind is that creams containing 2 % hydroquione that have
caused damage to African women are now  being used as anit-aging cream for white women
with double the amount of hydroquione. One such cream called “Lustre” is made by a  US pharmaceutical company and is sold in beauty salons and dermatology offices in the US.

Mire also makes the connection between the
pharmaceutical industry and the cosmetic industry. Transnational biotechnology, pharmaceutical
and cosmetics corporations are engaged in the research and development and mass
marketing of a plethora of new forms of skin-whitening products which can
“bleach out” the “dark skin tones” of women of colour and can remove corporeal
evidence of anti-aging processes, unhealthy life-styles and overall pollution
from the skin of white women”

In short a one stop solution that cuts
across racial, class and lifestyle boundaries that plays to both the desire for
eternal youth and racial superiority. 

The largest cosmetic company in the world
is L’Oreal who also serve as a prime
example of the pharmaceutical, cosmetic industry link; in this case between
L’Oreal and Sanofi-Synthelabo which is the third largest pharmaceutical company
after Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. (Incidentally
L’Oreal still uses animals in its research laboratories.)  Naturewatch    

In this way L’Oreal is able to blur the
distinction between cosmetics and pharmaceutics which as Mire points out has
“serious social, medical and political implications”. The accompanying advertising is a mix of pharmaceutics,
cosmetics and straight up racism.  For  example, Vichy, a L’Oreal subsidiary that is a pharmaceutics / cosmetics mix is able to market
skin lightening as “skincare biomedicine”.   To advertise their product “BI-White” they show a supposedly

"Asian woman peeling off her black facial skin with a
zipper. As her black skin is removed a
new ‘smooth’, ‘whitened’ skin with no blemishes takes its place. The implications of this image are blunt and
chilling. Blackness is false, dirty and
ugly. Whiteness is true, health, clean and beautiful."

There are now even skin lightening pills on the market that allow people to "lighten their skin from within" and come away with a "Hollywood" complexion.   

And theres Fair and Flawless  "for those who seek extreme lightening" and they can even make custom creams if you send them your picture.  The company is Von Hoven Cosmetics Inc and they sound like a pretty fearsome  bunch so I am not saying much else.

Whilst writing this and doing some googling I came across a discussion forum on the topic of skin-lightening/whitening on something called the Ask Me Help Desk.  I find it quite depressing that there are women, and they are mostly women out there who are really into this kind of makeover but  I suppose  they are at least discussing the products on the market.  According to one person there are "natural" creams and pills on the market. How can any skin lightening product be called natural? and pills at that.

On one level I have some small degree of
sympathy for women who use these products.  Sympathy for the apparent
dissatisfaction with their bodies that drives them to waste time and money on
useless products. On the other hand their vanity, self hate and inferiority complexes makes them  victims of advertising and consumerism and for this I have no sympathy whatsoever.   

Personally I
suggest we all irrespective of our race or sex, use natural oils of one sort or
the other depending where you live eg palm oil, shea butter, cocoa butter, agan
oil or olive oil. Right now I use unrefined agan oil from the Essouria region
of  Morocco.
or when that runs out olive oil for my hair body and face - lovely!  A friend of mine who has the most perfect skin at 60 plus has used nothing but vaseline all her life.  Whatever we women and men choose we should all learn to love our bodies and grow old with some degree of grace and self-respect!

Tags:  Cosmetics  Skin Lightening women

A survey by the Ministry of Health in Gabon has found that 1 in 4 pregnant women die from Illegal backstreet abortions. Another survey found that teenage girls accounted for 27% of the total. According to IRIN News 4 million unsafe abortions occur every year.  In Gabon and in Kenya, there has been cases of foetuses being found dumped in rubbish bins and  by the side of the road.

Thousands of other women survive, but many are left with injuries and disabilities such as uterine perforation, chronic pelvic pain and secondary infertility, the surveys said

Nearly half the 70,000 global deaths due to unsafe abortions occur in Africa. Three probable reasons - the young age of most of the girls, poverty, the restrictive abortion laws in many African countries, the powerful Christian church in Africa and patriarchy.  In many countries even in cases of rape and insist, abortion is illegal.  The African church is particularly strong in it’s opposition.  They have found support from the US which bans US funding to charities which either perform or promote abortion for family planning.

A baby producing factory has been discovered in Enugu State, eastern Nigeria.  In a poorly ventilated room ,

13 girls, many of them teenagers, at different stages of pregnancy, were found cramped like sardines in the small, squalid ambience.

We consider this callous, barbaric and savagely. The matter is made even more perplexing against the backdrop that it was being supervised by a medical doctor.

Previously factories have been discovered in Onitisha, Owerri and Enugu.  The children are sold to childless couples or "any other prospective buyer".

I have asked colleagues in Nigeria to try and find out more about this and other cases of child abuse and gender violence and will post when I have a response.

UNICEF have (for what it is worth) published yet another report "Childhood Under Threat - The State of the World’s Children, 2005".