Why are OTC eye drops becoming less safe?

Over-the-counter (OTC) lubricant eye drops, often called “artificial tears”, are purchased and used casually by millions of people who sometimes experience symptoms of ocular irritation.

At the same time, many of us who suffer from chronic ocular surface diseases, OTC eye drops - particularly the more advanced ones - are essential tools that we rely on to help us work, drive, read and generally get through our day in reasonable comfort.

Today, the rapidly evolving context for OTC eye drops is creating new and unsuspected risks.

• DEMAND: Dry eye is becoming epidemic. And the consumer pendulum is swinging heavily towards remedies marketed as “natural”, while “big pharma” drugs are increasingly perceived as full of potentially dangerous chemicals.

• DIGITAL WORLD: The digital retail marketplace makes it much more difficult to distinguish legitimate brands made by conscientious manufacturers from quack remedies produced by quacks or rogue companies.

• SUPPLY: Unqualified and unscrupulous companies are proliferating, attracted by our dry eye community’s insatiable appetite for relief - and our willingness to pay out of pocket. These companies are not only adopting seriously flawed packaging practices and making false claims, but they are also now successfully deceiving our eye doctors about the basic safety, efficacy and regulatory compliance status of their products.

• REGULATION: FDA regulatory rules for OTC eye drops continue to rely heavily on an outdated “honor system” approach. This may have worked acceptably in an era when almost all eye drops were manufactured by large publicly held companies. But today, it’s become painfully, frighteningly inadequate. Newer companies learn to manipulate the system, choose to ignore the system, or even boldly declare the system to be irrelevant.

As a result, we are seeing many eye drops on the market that have safety red flags we could hardly have imagined ten years ago.

No one seems to be paying attention to this problem.

We need our eye drops to be safe.

People shouldn’t have to die or go blind before safety issues are addressed.

Help us by sharing this site and alerting us to questionable eye drops.