Sunglasses were featured in a BBC episode of Rip Off Britain focusing on holidays last week – with dangerously low UV protection levels found for counterfeits items.
ABDO president and Boots Opticians dispensing standards manager Peter Black was interviewed by the show about UV exposure in the UK and overseas.
‘We know that UV causes sunburn and we protect our skin but we also need to protect our eyes,’ he said.
Black was also sent to Liverpool John Lennon airport for a sunglass clinic, and asked holiday goers to rank which sunglasses they thought offered most protection. Each of the pairs provided for the experiment were certified to British standards, but many of those surveyed were swayed by price tag.
The public was urged to concentrate on the fit and making sure sunglasses wrapped around the edges, especially for children.
Black also used an ultraviolet torch to measure the protection of sunglasses worn by visitors to the airport, with many bought outside of the EU regulations offering less protection. Such sunglasses were more dangerous than wearing nothing at all, Black stressed.
‘If you wear dark glasses and your pupils dilate it lets through more UV to the back of the eye,’ Black told one holiday maker. ‘So although they make things a little bit more comfortable because they are dark, you’d actually be well advised not to wear them and treat yourself to some others.’
He added: ‘The overriding message is that all of the sunglasses we’ve tested from reputable dealers, shops and opticians and chemists have all been really good and given 100 per cent protection. The ones that have failed have all been fake so there’s a lesson here to buy our sunglasses from a shop that we can trust.’
