Colin Fowler response letter

Dr Colin Fowler's recent article on the simplification of Ophthalmic Standards hits a cord. Those air conditioned hotel rooms wherein international standards are crafted by experts are a far step from sweaty lens workshops. A current big issue for today's prescription industry is whilst years ago we were populated by A or O Level technicians, now its perhaps those for whom English may not even be their first language. Complicated control formulas and procedures are less and less likely to be understood.

Now to my own bête noiré of standards the subject of UV400 definition. Ron Rabbett convener of UK Ophthalmic Standards gallantly struggles against an International posse whose objective would seem to keep the definition of UV so shrouded in confusion nobody but a Dr can unravel whether a lens material actually meets the stated requirements. As so many lens marketors have quickly latched onto the term UV400 it would benefit from a simple definition i.e., how much light might a lens transmit at the UV400 mark for it to be classed as UV400 absorbing? The reason I propose a simplistic approach is as the preferred UV reference alters, and it does i.e., UV450 UV500 etc. then the prescription industry can clearly demonstrate the ability of any particular lens to meet those ISO transmission requirements aided by a relatively simple spectrophotometer printout and a tolerance of % light transmission for a go or no go result rather than a visit to a physics lab for an answer - simple!