Adding a good rub to your contacts `

In the Health Answers column in the Boston Globe (6/30), Judy Foreman answers a question from a reader who asked, "Do you have to rub contact lenses to clean them if your cleanser is 'no rub?'" Foreman explains that, "according to a new consumer 'reminder' from the" FDA, the agency "is now advising lens wearers to rub as well as rinse lenses, a policy supported by the...American Optometric Association." The FDA's "recommendations apply even if" a "product is advertised as 'no rub,' and also include throwing out cleansers by the discard date, washing...hands when handling lenses," and letting the "lens storage case to dry (upside down, so water can drain) when lenses are removed." Just "this month, the FDA wrote to the nine companies allowed to market 'no rub' lenses," asking them to "'come in' to discuss the new data on lens cleaning," according to "Dr. Dan Schultz, director of the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health." (courtesy AOA)

It is very interesting that contact lens companies aren't broadcasting the 'no rub' feature like they used to. It may still be on some packaging but the font is not as large and some places have removed the statement all together.