Total (Eye Drop) Recall

You may seriously want to consider using your body's natural defense against irritants and produce tears before trying to flush anything out with an eye drop. There is currently a known contamination in at least 10 different eye drops since May 19th of this year that has triggered a large-scale recall of all potentially impacted products.

You may be thinking that it might be ok for you to try the eye drops you have and ignore the recall, but you may want to think twice before doing that. This is not a little issue where you can use the eyedrops anyway and deal with a little eye irritation later on. Oh, no - there are 4 reported deaths, 14 patients blinded, and 4 who had to have their eyes removed of the 80 people who have been identified to have used the contaminated eye drops.

What is causing all of these complications? The eye drops were contaminated with antibiotic resistant bacteria that happens to thrive in immunocompromised patients. More specifically, Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the culprit causing all of the medical complications. P. aeruginosa, similarly to the bacteria that causes staph infections, is fairly common and is found on most surfaces whether they are dead or alive or organic or inorganic and is generally pretty harmless. Unfortunately for the patients who have been infected with the bacteria, it tends to take advantage of existing infections or immunocompromised hosts when it does cause an infection. Infections caused by this bacterium can be difficult to treat as it naturally has resistance to some common antibiotics due to the structure of its cell.

Which eye drops were impacted? The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has called for a recall on Artificial Tears Lubricant Eye Drops and Artificial Eye Ointment made by Global Pharma Healthcare. Due to the nature of the contamination, it may be good to avoid all eye products produced by Global Pharma Healthcare. How did the contamination happen? Allegedly, unsafe manufacturing practices in the company's plant in India. While it is not certain as to exactly what those unsafe practices were, there are many conditions that would be considered unsafe by the FDA that might be viewed differently in India. Hence, there are rules with products that are imported from other countries that while they are legal in their country of origin they may not be legal in the United States. While import rules on products created outside of the United States help keep products safe and consistent for consumers, they also are not a deterrent for outsourcing. While that is not what happened in this case, as Global Pharma Healthcare is based in India, there are other large companies that are U.S. based that do outsource to other countries. Even for foreign based companies, to create a product on United States soil would cost the company pennies to the dollar when created in a country with more lax labor laws.

In short, while there are disadvantages around regulations and taxes there are advantages in terms of cost to produce things overseas. Unfortunately, in this case, American consumers are paying for an oversight in factory practices that resulted in contamination.

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