Union health ministry restricts sale of all fairness creams containing steroids

Mumbai: The ‘fair and lovely’ creams, which have thrived on an innate desire to look ‘fair’ and spawned a booming industry in skin care products, will now require prescriptions. The Union health ministry has restricted ‘over the counter’ sale of all fairness creams containing steroids and listed them in Schedule H – which essentially means you need a doctor’s prescription.

A senior official said chemists who will be caught selling such creams and ointments without adhering to the prescribed procedure for Schedule H items will be punished by the drug controller. In a notification issued on March 23, the ministry has put 14 steroid-based creams and ointments in the Schedule H category by making amendments to certain Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945.

A senior official said the creams which have been banned are alclometasone, beclomethasone, desonide, desoximetasone, fluocinonide, halobetasone, methylprednisolone, prednicarbate and triamcinolone acetonide and others. The decision is not applicable to normal face cleansers and moisturisers without topical preparations. The decision was taken following consultations with the Drugs Technical Advisory Board which had recommended a ban on the sale of such creams without prescription and had also submitted their recommendations to the Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation.

“We have been writing to the health ministry that pharmaceutical companies are selling steroid based creams and ointments to patients who use them without medical guidance. It is a good move but a lot more has to be done,” said Dr Ratnakar Kamat, a Member of the India Association of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists (IADVL). The decision has been welcomed by various dermatologists in the city. According to skin specialists, steroids can damage the skin and people have been using them due to their lack of awareness.

A Food and Drug Administration official said it was a much-needed step as there were several complaints by pharmaceutical companies regarding spurious fairness creams which contain steroids. “These creams contain steroids, due to which the skin tone can get damaged; but now if any chemist is found selling a fairness cream without prescription, he will be punished under the Drug and Cosmetic Act, 1945,” said Arjun Khadtare, Joint Commissioner FDA.