Bausch & Lomb Settles Contact Lens Lawsuits
On June 1, 2009 an Associated Press article reveals how during the past year, Bausch & Lomb has quietly settled almost 600 fungal-infection lawsuits. To date plaintiffs’ have received approximately $250 million. More than 700 lens wearers in the United States and Asia say they were exposed to a potentially blinding infection known as Fusarium keratitis while using ReNu with MoistureLoc, a new-formula multipurpose solution for cleaning, storing and moistening soft contact lenses.
Quite often, the damage was permanent. Seven people in Florida, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Tennessee and West Virginia had to have an eye removed. At least 60 more Americans needed vision-saving corneal transplants.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 180 cases in 35 states from June 2005 through September 2006, when the agency’s dedicated surveillance stopped, according to Dr. Benjamin Park, a CDC epidemiologist. CDC continued to hear of sporadic, unconfirmed cases in the months after MoistureLoc was withdrawn, Park said.
“Surveillance usually captures the tip of the iceberg and sometimes it captures a larger tip than other times,” Park said in an interview.
The culprit, an infection so rare that most eye doctors had never seen a case, somehow eluded MoistureLoc’s disinfecting defenses. The outbreak appeared first in Hong Kong in spring 2005 and reached its peak in the United States just days after MoistureLoc was removed from domestic markets in April 2006.
Victims typically complained of eye irritation that progressed to a sudden onset of searing pain. Many were mistakenly treated with antibiotics and steroids a delayed diagnosis that worsened the condition.
Leading eye doctors and government scientists concluded that MoistureLoc, launched in 2004 with novel disinfectant and moisturizing ingredients, was the only lens solution that contributed to the outbreak. Yet the mechanics of how it caused the problem are still not fully clear.
Some researchers theorize that the disinfectant, alexidine, absorbed into lenses at unusually high rates and the moisturizing agents created a biofilm in some circumstances that shielded and even fostered growth of the fungus to infectious levels.
In 2007, another popular formula made by Santa Ana, California based Advanced Medical Optics, the No. 3 manufacturer behind Alcon Inc. and Bausch & Lomb, was linked to a flurry of hard-to-treat Acanthamoeba keratitis infections caused by a parasite. More than 170 people have sued the company, which was acquired this year by Abbott Laboratories.
While Bausch says it has settled “the vast majority of fungal infection cases,” it is challenging another 500-plus lawsuits linking MoistureLoc to assorted bacterial, viral and parasitic afflictions. A pretrial hearing set for June 3-5 in New York will decide if there’s a reliable scientific basis for arguing such a link.
