Many soft contact lenses in US made up of PFAS, research suggests

This is a scare story - the original &quot;research&quot; The Guardian have linked to is an article by Mamavation which is the blog of Leah Segedie who &quot;has a Masters degree from the University of Southern California in Communication Management&quot;.<p>Leah found &quot;Indications of PFAS&quot;, organic Fluorine, which may or may not be PFAS. Whilst she may not be wrong, as a wearer of contact lenses myself I would like to know the truth.

So is there a health concern with having PFAS in contact with your eyes, or is this an environmental issue because they don&#x27;t degrade? It sounds like there&#x27;s something here meant to get upset about, but I don&#x27;t know what it&#x27;s supposed to be.

PFAS is to my generation as leaded gasoline is to the prior generation(s), and asbestos to the ones before them, and so forth from when the first chimneys were put up to spew toxic sludge into our air and rivers at the start of the industrial revolution. There is something so sad, so unworkable, and so deeply troubling about how this kind of thing keeps happening.

How large are PFAS particles? Because the Bowman&#x27;s layer found just under the epithelium should stop most particles from reaching the stroma. The Bowman&#x27;s layer is particularly frustrating for medicinal delivery - it stops most particles from reaching stroma&#x2F;endothelium. This makes corneal burn recovery quite difficult.<p>So if PFAS has some mechanism to pass through the Bowman&#x27;s layer, it could be useful for medicine delivery and healing corneal wounds.

The crucial part of this research that is omitted is that the type of PFAS that contact lenses contain are “fluoropolymers”, a subcategory of PFAS that is considered to be less dangerous, and is not the subject of most PFAS regulation. Still potentially harmful, of course, I don’t claim to be an expert on this stuff, but it’s an important point that was left out of the article.

The full article is at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;environment&#x2F;2023&#x2F;may&#x2F;09&#x2F;contact-lenses-pfas-forever-chemicals" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;environment&#x2F;2023&#x2F;may&#x2F;09&#x2F;contact-...</a>

Cipro, Prozac, and Flonase are PFAS.<p>The media has successfully stirred up fear on an entire class of compounds that have half-lives ranging over many orders of magnitude.

Well then. LASIK it is.

Any actionable advice here? Are there any safer contact lens brands?

I appreciate that I can always trust HN to tear bullshit articles to shred. Thanks y’all

Guess I&#x27;ll stick with spectacles. Safe, inert, strong, transparent, recyclable, cheap, and abundant... glass is truly a Bronze Age wonder material!

If I want to sell lemonade, tea or coffee by the road, I need to apply for 5 different documents of some kind or another in my city.<p>If I want to manufacture (or moreso, <i>import</i>) things with all kinds of unknown, untested chemicals, I am free to do as I wish with no supervision.