'Urine is bad for you'

2003-03-14 10:35

Yaounde - Cameroon's health minister on Thursday warned people against drinking their own urine, believed in some circles to be a tonic and cure for a number of ailments.

"Given the risks of toxicity associated in the short, medium and long term with ingesting urine, the health ministry advises against the consumption of urine and invites those who promote the practice to cease doing so forthwith or risk prosecution," Health Minister Urbain Olanguena Awono said in a statement.

Many a Cameroonian has reportedly tried urinotherapy, with some utterly convinced of its health-giving virtues.

Some newspapers have been touting consumption of one's own urine, known in pseudo-medical jargon as 'urinotherapy', as a means of treating a bevy of illnesses.

One paper went as far as proclaiming urine "a universal remedy that, if regularly consumed, can treat around 64 illnesses".

These included, according to the paper, cancer, gastrointestinal attacks, snakebite and fever.

"I had haemorrhoids for five years. Nothing gave me relief. But six months ago I started drinking half a glass of my urine every morning and I am practically healed," an elderly shopkeeper in Yaounde said.

Political

"For several years now, I haven't had a hair on my head, but since I started drinking my urine, it's started growing again - it's quite extraordinary," said a magistrate who, understandably, also asked not to be named.

The paper Le Messager said the health ministry's ban on urine drinking was politically motivated and aimed at getting the public to take its healthcare cues from reputable authorities.

The ban should "first and foremost be seen as a way of giving public health management in Cameroon a political orientation.

"What's at issue is convincing Cameroonians to change convictions they have acquired from books and through the experiences of others."

- AFP