Like every October, health authorities and medical organizations want to remind you that the decorative, over-the-counter lenses are not only illegal, they're also terrible for your eyes. And they're not telling tall tales.
[...]
Just on Tuesday, USA Today reported the case of a Cleveland woman who got decorative lenses stuck to her eyeballs. The lenses were supposed to turn her brown eyes blue but instead made them swollen and red. She had to have them removed in an emergency room.
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Patient 12, on the other hand, was not so lucky. After buying cat-eye lenses at a flea market, the 26-year-old man developed a severe, painful infection called Acanthamoeba keratitis. The infection is caused by a free-living amoeba running rampant in the cornea, which can be blinding—as it was in this case. He ended up needing a corneal transplant, and three months afterwards his vision was still 20/200, which is considered legally blind.
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If you really want to change the look of your eye, the FDA emphasizes that it's very important to buy FDA-approved decorative lenses through your eye doctor or another reputable vendor—with your prescription.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/heres-why-you-should-never-use-decorative-contact-lenses-in-graphic-pictures/
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/contact-lenses/list-contact-lenses
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:17PM (4 children)
However, consumer protection laws are there for a reason, and there's never an excuse for flouting them so. Well, either that or we could just drop that inconvenient law that's getting in the way of the free market, that's always an option.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @03:29PM
Just read the Amazon reviews, it is just as good as the FDA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @04:48PM (2 children)
Yeah, too many people have good enough vision right now, what we need is to allow all players in and let the market handle the product liability issues, you betcha.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Thursday October 31 2019, @06:05PM (1 child)
But there's a legitimate public burden of having a bunch of extra blind people running around, bumping into things. How do you incorporate that into the market?
Your sarcasm is palpable, but I think it's worth pointing out the shortcomings of the deregulation approach.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 31 2019, @06:33PM
I bought a shelving unit from amazon and it cut my finger, other reviews mentioned the same problem. Out of the hundreds of thousands of people who got cut and caused a public burden, one got infected and had to go to the hospital. That is why the FDA should regulate shelving units too.