Radio 4 stokes online contact lens debate

Purchasing contact lenses online has been the subject of continued media scrutiny culminating in a face-off between representatives of the BCLA and website Getlenses.co.uk on national radio.

It follows news of a contact lens wearer who lost her eye after developing the Fusarium eye infection (News 08.02.13) and another case where a woman had her cornea removed (The Sun, Contact lens fungus ate my eye too, February 11). Further coverage in The Sun documented two other patients who experienced problems after buying CLs online last week.

Ashley Mealor, marketing director of Getlenses.co.uk, and BCLA president Dr Catharine Chisholm both featured on BBC Radio 4's You &Yours programme on February 8. They discussed the case of a patient who had purchased CLs from an unnamed online retailer that made her eyes sore and dry, who was said to have woken up one day and been unable to go outside because it was so bright. She was told by a practitioner that the lens had 'burnt the sphere' of her eye and symptoms have continued for two years since.