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The Cohen Group Newsletter - Volume 5  Issue 3, Article 3.  September 2003

An Update on Contact Lenses in the Workplace

Mark Golembiewski, CIH

The Eye and Vision Committee of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) recently published a guideline on the use of contact lenses in the industrial environment (see http://www.acoem.org/guidelines/guidelines/).  You may recall that in the Sept 2000 issue of The Cohen Group Newsletter, we reported on a similar set of guidelines that was previously released by the American Optometric Association.  This article is intended to bring you up to date on current thinking and recommendations regarding the use of contact lenses by workers in industrial (i.e., hazardous) environments. 

The ACOEM recommends that workers be permitted to wear contact lenses when handling hazardous chemicals and in other eye-hazardous environments -- provided that certain safety practices are followed and that contact lenses are not: 1) banned by regulation, 2) contraindicated by medical or industrial hygiene recommendations, or 3) worn when working with one of several specific chemical carcinogens (e.g., methylene chloride, acrylonitrile, and ethylene oxide), since the specific Cal/OSHA rules for those substances include prohibitions on the use of contact lenses. 

When permitting the use of contact lenses in eye-hazardous work areas, the ACOEM recommends implementing the following elements as a supplement to your safety program:

At The Cohen Group, we still occasionally hear some of the old “myths” cited as reasons why employees should not be permitted to wear contacts in areas where chemical threats or other eye hazards exist.  So let’s reexamine some of these presumed hazards and consider what is really known about the actual risks.

Contact lenses can be fused to the eyeball.  This fallacy is credited with originating from a single incident in 1967 when it was reported that a Baltimore welder was blinded because a flash from an arcing circuit breaker allegedly caused the contacts he was wearing to become fused to his eyeballs.  This report was later proved to be false and it was learned that the welder actually continued to wear his contacts for 17 to 18 hours after the incident.  He was subsequently treated for corneal ulcerations and his sight was not permanently impaired.  Although the rumor of contact lenses being fused to a person’s eyeballs has been widely repudiated and rebutted as being physically impossible, it still persists. 

Contact lenses can trap and hold chemicals against the cornea.  There continues to be a mistaken belief that chemicals splashed in the eye can be come trapped behind the contact lens and thereby exacerbate any injury caused by the initial corneal contact with the chemical.  Some have also claimed that wearing contacts prevents the eyeball from being flushed properly when irrigated by an eyewash.  Apparently, this “myth” started back in 1969 when it was alleged that an individual wearing contacts and safety goggles was splashed in the face with a caustic solution.  Reportedly, the individual received emergency treatment, but it was claimed that some of the chemical was trapped beneath his contact lenses and could not be immediately washed out, causing severe burns of the eyes before the lenses could be removed.  This particular incident was never documented or confirmed, however, and took on the life of a factual account.

Contact lenses absorb and retain chemical vapors, thus creating a distinct hazard.   This common misperception has been shown to be patently untrue.  Many wearers of soft contact lenses have reported that they are able to peel onions without suffering the usual effects of excessive tearing.  This result tends to demonstrate that contact lenses can actually offer some protection against offensive, irritating vapors.  In addition, recent studies examining the effects of exposure to tear gas by contact lens users and the absorption of ammonia vapors in soft contact lenses both showed that these vapors were not more readily absorbed by the soft lenses and that the lenses actually provided some additional protection to the users rather than becoming an additional eye hazard.

So if you ignore the negative myths that have persisted for years about contact lenses and chemical hazards, and establish sensible measures to ensure they are worn safely, you can be comfortable that your employees can wear their contacts on the job without jeopardizing their health of their eyes.  If you have any further questions about contact lenses in the workplace, please contact us at The Cohen Group.