Legality of non-standard thickness glass..

[Darris Chambless]

Steve Machol said:
As far as I know, simple possession of thin lenses is not a crime anywhere in the U.S. Of course, who's to say what they've made illegal in Texas! ;)

I agree possesion is not illegal it's the liability that comes with it for the manufacturer, dispensor and wearer. In escence it's not illegal until someone squacks :)

As to what's illegal in Texas...Well. You can legally carry a gun (with the proper credentials mind you) but you can't carry a pair of linemans pliers in your back pocket. Public intoxication is illegal but there are bars on just about every street corner (Hmmm. Are those people in the bar having Bible Study groups? ;) It is illegal to take a loaded gun of any kind into a bar but you can give the drunks, throwing darts and pool cues :) You can buy a car, truck or motorcycle that will do 140 to 220 mph but you can only legally drive them at a top speed of 70 mph on highways designated for that speed, but then speed limits are everywhere in the states. Oh and you can carry a pocket knife with whatever length blade you can find but you can only carry a fixed blade 3 inches or shorter balde length and it cannot be double edged even if it is regulation blade length. Switchblades are illegal but you can carry an "assisted opening" folder. (for those that don't know what that is "assisted opening is a switchblade without an external switch. You manually open the blade a quarter of the way and it automatically opens the rest of the way.)

We Texans are both loveable and deadly. It's kind of cool really :)

Well take care,

Darris C.

[Bob Franklin]

Interesting the way this topic twisted & turned....but in responce to original question....let me say that here in Canada....when we make a minus lens thinner than drop ball specs permit...we call it "dress thickness" & are required to advise the patient of the dangers & it is only prudent to obtain a waiver keeping it on file.

A high minus glass lens in my estimation is dangerous with the critical center area being so thin as to virtually afford no safety to the wearer.......that I would not consider making a glass lens but would reccomend polycarbonate.

In this case the customer is not always right demanding a thin"high minus" glass lens & we have an obligation to protect them from their own vanity & pride!

And...yes, I have seen eye injuries from a lens made too thin......& the myopic patient who has lost partial vision , would have "a thousand times over" have wished that he would have been talked out of his glass lens made too thin.

[Jim G]

As an interesting aside, I once asked where the 3/8" ball @ 50" came from. Believe the response was that was a standard that most lenses would have passed in 1972...absolutely NO corrolation to ANY standard of safety (no sense establishing a standard that would "outlaw" the lenses already on the market). Our government at work. Just think tho, were it not for that, CR-39 would probably still be a nitch player as it is in other parts of the world.

From a practical standpoint, the patient (thru his lawyer) is the one who is gonna "inforce" the standard. The dispenser, doctor (if recommended) and manufacturer are the one's at risk. Robert's comment about 100% drop-ball is valid; a 1.0 C.T. glass lens of any index just ain't gonna make it. An untempered 1.8 or 1.9 even less-so.

[Carol D]

Pete,

About 15 years ago, when I was with LensCrafters, a sales associate fit a guy with standard thisckness PGX lenses. A week or two later, he came back in fuming because one lens had shattered. He had to go to an ER and have small glass slivers removed from his eye (thankfully none penetrated his cornea). He was waving around the broken glasses and talking about lawsuits. A very savvy general manager took the broken eyewear from the gentleman, replaced them with two pair of eyewear (plastic lenses), gave him a refund on the original pair, and, of course, paid for his visit to the ER. The man seemed satified, but we held our collective breath for several weeks expecting to be served with court papers at any time. We were lucky. We never saw him again. All in all, we got off cheap.

I had a parent ask me to make a pair of "ultra thin" glass lenses for her TEN YEAR OLD daughter a few years ago. I refused. They stopped by two months later and showed them to me. They found another optician who sent them off to Europe to be made. They were so thin that if you had braced them on a lensometer and tried to spot them with the ink marker, they would easily have shattered. I don't know if she had any problems with them, but I do know that optician went out of business less than a year later.

Sometimes I sleep a whole lot better when I tell a patient NO.

Carol D

[Darryl Meister]

Jim G said:
As an interesting aside, I once asked where the 3/8" ball @ 50" came from. Believe the response was that was a standard that most lenses would have passed in 1972...absolutely NO corrolation to ANY standard of safety (no sense establishing a standard that would "outlaw" the lenses already on the market).

As an added comment to this point... If I remember correctly, I think the drop ball standard was based upon an original drop ball apparatus that was developed by one company (perhaps AO?) for verifying and demonstrating the strength of its tempered safety lenses. Consequently, the geometry of the device became kind of a de facto standard that was eventually incorporated into the FDA's regulation. After all, the device demonstrated whether glass lenses of conventional thickness had been properly heat-tempered, which was the primary means to make glass lenses impact-resistant at the time. However, since the FDA allows the use of any equivalent test, any apparatus can be used in theory if it delivers the 0.2 joules of impact energy that the standard drop ball apparatus delivers.

There also seems to be some question about waivers, as well. The FDA has specifically stated that using waivers for dispensing non-impact-resistant lenses is not acceptable, and that all lenses must be impact-resistant. The only exception to this is if impact-resistant lenses will not meet the prescription requirements of the wearer, which is unlikely to ever occur.

Best regards,
Darryl

[Jedi]

A 2:00 am rant

As professionals we have to acknowledge the fact that a portion of our patients are nuts. People want what other people have, just because someone saw how thin there friends glasses are doesn't mean that we should bend over backwards or push the envelope when it comes to making up a pair of glasses that will live up to their "standards". To often the patient takes control of the situation and wants his lenses a little thinner, or the price a little lower. In order for us to stay as professionals we have to stick together, take back control, be upfront and honest, and tell the patient, this is how thin your lenses will be, no there is nothing else I can do to make them thinner and have you ever considered contact lenses or lasik. (Oh and by the way, the price is marked on the frame.) In my short career I have seen way too many dumb pair of glasses made to the patients "standards", and guess what, most of the patients hate those pairs and blame the last guy who sold them.(Forgetting they had full control of the situation) So much for trying to make the customer happy. Our duty is to provide patients with solutions for vision correction based on OUR standards, not from their imagination.

Jedi

PS- Show me a patient who can spot a 1.0mm difference between to lenses, and I'll show you a liar. Unless the are an engineer, because they a crazy to begin with. ;)

[harry a saake]

I once posted this a long time ago, Shanbaum(who i assume has no first name, always wondered why) mentioned about lenses not standing a second or third hit, and hes right.
.....Back in about 1972 when i was with B&L we ran tests on batches of minus lenses and found out it was usually only a matter of how many strikes with the steel ball would it take before the lens shattered, and these were 3.0 safety glass lenses. Sometime it was the second strike, sometimes the 10th, point being they broke, always wondered why?
......Darryl Meister pointed out the fact that all glass lenses are subject to have what are known as Griffith flaws, which apparently when hit enought times expand and eventually the lens shatters.
.....One can only imagine how much easier this will happen on a lens three time thinner.
.....I can personally attest to more then once, while glazing lenses of this thin nature, of having put my thumb right through the center of the lens and breaking it and i would not be terribly surprised to hear JIM G say the same.
......I also noticed no mention of the fact that if a lawsuit occurs and you had anything to do with making those glasses then you become part of the manufacturing process and you may just wind up in court.
.......

[John R]

harry a saake said:

......I also noticed no mention of the fact that if a lawsuit occurs and you had anything to do with making those glasses then you become part of the manufacturing process and you may just wind up in court.
.......

On that point if all you did was test and say to get what you want is against our (usa safety specs) so we cannot do this but if you were to send to another company overseas you could get what you want... how would you stand then...
Or is it the case of any advice you give is going ot lead to court...
I cant see any of your lawers try to take on a outside the states company when it is clear that by going to a non/usa company it was the customers personal choice, its like them buying a pair on holiday....I would think that you could only have recourse to the law in the country of origion.

[so]

It seems odd to me that eye glasses have to be soooo safe. Chances are that if you are hit by any object hard enough to actually break the lenses, you would probably have been injured had you not been wearing glasses at all. If I need to be concerned about flying objects, I will wear my safety glasses.

I know, I know, things happen at unplanned times. Maybe we should all be wearing helmets, arm guards, steel toed shoes, and bullet proof vests all the time.

We seem to be very willing to trade freedom for safety. Unfortunately, safety is even more of an illusion than freedom.

[harry a saake]

So, i dont think its a matter of what you said as yes it is true if you get hit hard enough you will get injured, but the point here is when the glass breaks in to sharp jagged pieces and you becaome injured even more so, thats where the problem arises.

[Optician]

Well, as much as I appreciated and value the collective observations posted here, I dispensed a pair of 1.8 index glass lenses to my patient on Monday afternoon.

This gentleman is about 55 years old and has an Rx of approximately -10.00. He put the new AR coated glasses on and was simply dumbfounded. First he just looked at himself for a while. Next, he turned to another patient and said, "How do my glasses look to you?"

Basically, he was just amazed at how nice his lenses looked. He has been suffering through contact lens wear off and on for a year or two now (suffering, because he has very dry eyes and even punctum plugs have given very little relief), but he plans on ditching them for his new glasses. He joked that he would "have to look up people who knew him in grade school" to find anyone who would remember him in glasses that looked so "normal."

Now, I did inform him (repeatedly) that he was placing himself at risk of having shattered lenses. I didn't bother with a waiver because it is apparently meaningless and insulting to everyone's intelligence. His reply was "Hey, I choose to ride my Harley for 90% of my travel. I take an extra risk every time I go out to eat riding my bike- I think I am the best judge of what risks I'm willing to take with my eyewear."

After convincing him to wear his CR-39 (ugly) glasses when riding his bike (wouldn't want a rock to shatter the lenses), I watched the single most delighted patient I've had in over a decade leave my office. If providing a consenting, informed adult with a product that dramatically increases his appearance and provides excellent optics is illegal, there's something wrong with our system. These lenses were some of the most amazing optical lenses I've ever seen. The fellow (foreign) who provided them commented "That's pretty much standard over here..."

[chip anderson]

I'm with the Harley Rider. The world was just fine when the government didn't look out for us and tell us we had to wear seat belts, helmets or changed from warning us to commanding us. Take all the do-gooder for your own good laws and put them where Ralph Nader will least appreciate it.

Chip

[bren_03825]

In our office the Dr\owner just purchased individual liability insurance for each dispenser. The idea being: If there was an injury, the lawyer for the injured can sue the business, the owner of the business, the final manufacturer, each individual and company involved in the manufacturing of the product, as well as the dispenser. So, in order that in case something ever did happen, imho, not likely, but if something did, all parties minus the corporations you got the frames or lenses from, are covered, ie: dispenser , and the boss.