Eye Care: FDA warns eye drops may cause infection

The FDA has warned consumers not to purchase or use 27 eye drops carried by several major brands due to what they call “potential risk of eye infections that could result in partial vision loss or blindness”.

These products are marketed under the following brands: CVS Health, Leader (Cardinal Health), Rugby (Cardinal Health), Rite Aid, Target Up & Up and Velocity Pharma.

The FDA says consumers should properly discard these products after investigators found insanitary conditions in the manufacturing facility and positive bacterial test results from environmental sampling of critical drug production areas in the facility in October.    

WDIO spoke to Whitney C. Lauer, she is an ophthalmologist at Theobald Family Eye Care in Duluth on how significant this recall is.

“One of the infections that we’re most concerned is called Pseudomonas. It’s a very resistant pathogen to treat, and in some cases, if someone perhaps was immune compromised, they could certainly have more life altering effects as opposed to just a vision altering effect.”

Whitney described the best way to apply eye drop since most eye infections occur in that moment.

“You can pull your lower eyelid down, so you have a bigger area to catch the eye drop. One thing I also suggest to my patients is tilting your head back and resting that bottle on your nose. And the dropper will drop right into the eye as opposed to trying to aim.”

She also spoke about best practices for eye care.

“Best thing is, number one, washing and drying your hands before you’re going to be putting anything in your eyes, whether that is an eye drop, a contact lens, if you need to put makeup on or you’re putting lotion on or washing your face, wash and dry your hands. Number two, if you do use eye drops regularly for any condition the biggest source of contamination is getting the tip dirty. If you drop the bottle or touch the tip, you really should be replacing that bottle rather than reusing it.”

Here is the link to the comprehensive FDA report.