Letters: June 30

Safety First

Mr Young’s letter, Optician June 23, should have been shown a ‘red card’. Mr Young is, of course, free to disagree with any aspect of what we do but should support his views with facts. His letter of June 23 2006 makes a series of potentially damaging and scare-mongering statements, in particular, that we ‘advocate an approach that seems recklessly unsafe’. 
 
What Mr Young does not say is that he wrote to me in November 2005 and twice in May 2006 in thinly disguised sales pitches pointing out that, ‘Most CL manufacturers do support product claims with clinical data and see a commercial benefit in doing so as it helps build credibility’, adding that Visioncare Research ‘would go out of business if they didn’t’. So there we have it.

I am well aware of the role of clinical data in developing a CL business. However, there are two modalities of contact lens wear which have resulted in serious eye damage, even blindness. Both were given ‘credibility’ by a mass of clinical data. I refer, of course to extended wear and lens cleaning systems. More clinical data would not have prevented these disasters. We support our ‘safety-first’ policy by only making daily-disposable contact lenses – hardly a recklessly unsafe strategy.

Lastly, lens substitution without refitting, is nothing new. The right to do so has been in the Terms and Conditions of Specsavers for years and I would imagine has been a useful facility in ensuring that Sauflon, as their order fulfilment company, could maintain delivery standards without being ‘recklessly unsafe’ by doing so.

Ron Hamilton
daysoft® limited