Bausch & Lomb withdraws lens solution

Contact lens maker Bausch and Lomb today announced a worldwide recall of its MoistureLoc solution  that had been linked to a rare eye infection.

'Bausch and Lomb's top priority is the safety of our customers,  and we want them to have complete confidence in our products,' chairman and CEO Ronald Zarrella said in a statement.

The announcement came after health authorities in Hong Kong, Singapore and the US reported that the MoistureLoc  formula was used by many of the contact lens wearers treated for a rare eye infection called Fusarium keratitis.

Bausch and Lomb said it immediately launched an investigation, which concluded there had been no contamination or tampering with  the product.

'That leads us to conclude that some aspect of the MoistureLoc formula may be increasing the relative risk of Fusarium infection in  unusual circumstances," Zarrella said, adding that the investigation is continuing.

'We are continuing to investigate this link, but in the meantime, we're taking the most responsible action in the interests  of our customers by discontinuing the MoistureLoc formula,' the CEO  said. 'We are taking this action even in countries where we have seen no unusual trends in Fusarium infections, for example in China and the markets in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa,' he added.

Earlier this month, US health authorities confirmed 102 cases of  the infection, a painful inflammation of the cornea that can lead to  blindness. A total of 54 sufferers had used Bausch and Lomb cleaning  solutions.
  
The US Centers for Disease Control cautioned that not all of the infections involved people who used Bausch and Lomb solutions exclusively, saying that three involved Alcon solutions and another three were linked to Advanced Medical Optics solutions.

But it noted that some of the users may have used more than one company's solutions before becoming infected with fungal keratitis. It added that the disease occurs naturally in the environment and the increase in cases may have resulted from greater public awareness of the condition, because of recent media coverage of  Bausch and Lomb.

The company has a manufacturing facility in Waterford.