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Ed Yeates ReportingA Utah based lab may have come up with new packaged disposable contact lens that dramatically decreases the risk of contamination. In fact, it may be the safest innovation the industry has offered in almost a decade.
Though a recent massive recall of a contaminated eye wetting solution spooked users of contact lenses, a Utah company today showed reporters something new that just might diffuse those fears.
The 15 day box of single use or disposable contact lenses - one for each eye - looks more like a dispenser for thin mints. That's because each packet with its own lens is thinner than a dime. Instead of storage containers, cleaning vials, or having to finger swim in a miniature pool, searching for the eyepiece, it simply pops up - face down - for the user to pick up without ever touching the eye side of the lens.
Allen Hwang, Clear Lab: "This one is going to be safer even that the existing daily disposables because you never touch the inside of the lens."
Manhandling a contact lens on the backside increases the risk of contamination. Once in the eye, that bacteria then cultivates and grows behind the lens in what ophthalmologists call an almost ideal petri dish environment.
A potentially contaminated eye wetting solution was pulled off the shelves a few months ago because some users developed fungal keratitis. Some required corneal transplants. While the new lens package is still in the testing stage, Utah based Clearlab believes soon-to-begin studies will prove the purity of the system.
Allen Hwang: "You just put it in and throw it away. You never have to take care of it by storing it in contact lens cases that studies have found are 31 percent contaminated."
It's expected the new packaged lenses for both eyes will cost consumers a dollar per day, which is about the pricetag now for single use lenses.
