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Science

Big Trouble for B&L

Oh, boy.  Just what we need in Rochester: one of the Big Three getting sued.  Bausch and Lomb’s ReNu Moisture Lock contact lens solution has apparently been alleged to be responsible for 26 cases of a rare fungal eye infection.  What is worse is that it’s a rare infection, and from the way the article makes it sound, there is little chance that the execs didn’t know about it:

Bausch suspends lens solution, faces lawsuit – Yahoo! News

The company was sued in federal court in New York for allegedly failing to disclose problems with ReNu after it became aware that users in Asia had contracted fungal infections.

Bausch & Lomb suspended sales of ReNu in Hong Kong and Singapore after potential health problems arose in Asia two months ago.

What is truly weird about the whole thing is that out of 109 cases in the US, only 26 seem to be directly linked to the contact solution.  That begs the question: how many cases of this infection happen anually under normal circumstances?

Well, according to eMedicine.com, here’s the rate of infection in the United States:

In the US: The incidence of fungal keratitis varies according to geographical location and ranges from 2% of keratitis cases in New York to 35% in Florida. Fusarium species are the most common cause of fungal corneal infection in the southern United States (45-76% of fungal keratitis), while Candida and Aspergillus species are more common in northern states.

Now, with a population of 295,734,134, even if we take the lowest number presented in the above article, we still come out to more than 109 cases, and out of the 109 cases that they’re looking into, only 26 are definitively tied to B&L’s solution, so I am led to conclude but one thing: that this reporting sucks.

What is it about these 109 cases that seems so exceptional? What is it about the minority of these cases that leads them to believe that B&L is part of it? Where’s the reporting? Don’t look for it from our Rochester news sources, that’s for sure.

By Tommy Belknap

Owner, developer, editor of DragonFlyEye.Net, Tom Belknap is also a freelance journalist for The 585 lifestyle magazine. He lives in the Rochester area with his wife and son.