moved:
That, in the opinion of the House, the Minister of Health should regulate non-corrective, cosmetic contact lenses as medical devices under the Hazardous Product Act or the Food and Drugs Act.
Mr. Speaker, it is my duty to rise today and bring attention to a most serious matter, one that has been taken lightly for too long. Hopefully in my address today I will be able to successfully enlighten the House as to the severity of this matter.
Hopefully we can begin to have a fruitful debate on an issue that stems in part from a crucial lack of regulation due to a classification oversight. Today I will show the House how this very same lack of regulation is putting Canadians in communities from coast to coast to coast in a greatly elevated atmosphere of risk.
I am speaking, of course, of the issue of non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses regulation in Canada.
Today I have the privilege of being able to present to my fellow parliamentarians what we could consider the initial phase in opening up a larger debate on the various benefits of regulating non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses.
In the next few minutes, I ask members to listen to my words about the severity of this issue, because the first time I spoke with members of the Canadian Association of Optometrists, I was sincerely surprised at the underlying health issues associated with using these contact lenses. What is truly needed to alter the existing status quo toward non-corrective lenses is change within the essential classification policy.
In the past, prevailing conventional wisdom was that the coloured contact lenses that some of our high school age children have perhaps actually worn were not a Class II medical device. This is in direct contradiction to the fact that while non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses pose no refractive merit, they still possess the identical health risks that corrective lenses do and in fact are more dangerous than regular corrective lenses. This belief is shared by eye care professionals across the industry.
Countless individuals across all age barriers are consumers of these unregulated contact lenses and countless individuals are increasing non-repairable damage to their eyes without even knowing it.
Motion No. 409 states quite explicitly:
That, in the opinion of the House, the Minister of Health should regulate non-corrective, cosmetic contact lenses as medical devices under the Hazardous Products Act or the Food and Drugs Act.
This brings about the necessity of amending either the Hazardous Products Act or the Food and Drugs Act in order to bring non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses under the same regulation as corrective lenses.
As such, we can successfully alleviate the risks associated with the use of non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses. We can ensure that consumers of such a product are receiving professional supervision when it comes to matters of their vision. Thus, regulation is needed to ensure that non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses are properly fitted to the individual eye.
There is a simple reason why non-corrective lenses are more strenuous than corrective lenses for the human eye. For those who have never handled a contact lens before, I point out that they are incredibly light in weight. Thus, a contact lens maintains its light weight and possesses a strong refractive capacity by being composed mostly of water.
It is the nature of the refractive capacity that allows the contact lens to serve as a corrective lens. Because it alters a bodily function--in this case it allows the human eye to focus better and increase our overall field of vision-- it is recognized as a type II medical device.
Corrective contact lenses are quite comfortable. They breathe, although most opticians still advise that there is an associated risk of wearing even a corrective contact lens.
Recently, my executive assistant, on a visit to his optician here in Ottawa, was surprised to learn of non-repairable damage done to his cornea. He had been wearing a corrective lens with a cosmetic tinting to alter his eye colour, albeit slightly.
It was the thin layer of ink within the contact lens that suppressed his cornea's natural ability to breathe. Over time his cornea became scratched. This is also known as a torn cornea. As such, and at the request of his optician, my assistant switched to a corrective lens without the cosmetic tinting. This allows his eyes to breathe much easier during the course of a day, although his optician has advised him that he should ultimately consider ceasing to wear lenses on a daily basis permanently.
Accordingly, the risks associated with wearing a lens over the cornea are greatly increased with the usage of a coloured contact. Thus, the damage to my assistant's eye could have potentially been far greater had he been wearing a non-corrective cosmetic lens. Yet, despite this increased risk, there are zero regulations for non-corrective contact lenses.
Wearers of these lenses almost always wear the lenses to alter their eye colour to a more desirable tone. This requires a thin layer of ink injected into the watery contact lens. This pocket of ink blocks the natural path of oxygen one would find in a corrective non-coloured lens.
Moreover, in 2003, the Contact Lens Association of Ophthalmologists reported that a contact lens, coloured or not, was a plastic foreign body that rests for hours, days or weeks on the most delicate and most important image-forming structure in the eye: the corneal epithelium.
Contact lenses are composed of tiny polymers that are cooked together by the miracle of modern chemistry into long, intertwined strands that form a curved plastic sheet. These units effectively create a barrier that prevents normal amounts of oxygen from reaching the eye.
As stated already, this process is much worse in coloured contact lenses, of which the majority of cosmetic lenses are.
The lack of oxygen to the cornea is extremely damaging. When one sleeps with these coloured lenses still placed over the cornea, oxygen starvation increases further potential for damage. During meetings with opticians, I have personally heard of stories whereby students in university, completely unaware of any risk, would wear disposable lenses, which were to be thrown out after a month, for longer than six months on occasion.
Again, the risk increases when we are discussing these terms in regards to non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses.
There are literally thousands of people across Canada right now doing damage to their eyes and they do not even know it. What is worse is that they will not know because they will never be made to see an optometrist in order to obtain non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses as they would be forced to under existing regulation for corrective contact lenses.
However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks to proactive studies into the damaging effects of non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses, we are now seeing research that indicates the strong risk of wearing these lenses. The industry has collectively united and organizations, such as the Canadian Ophthalmological Society, the Canadian Association of Optometrists and the Optician Association of Canada, have lobbied to see what type of regulatory controls can be applied to non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses.
Thus, for nearly five years the Canadian Association of Optometrists, also known as the CAO; the Canadian Ophthalmological Society, the COS; and the Optician Association of Canada have actively lobbied Health Canada to regulate non-corrective lenses under the auspices of the Food and Drugs Act regulations.
As a result of the lobbying efforts by the CAO, COS and the Optician Association of Canada, Health Canada commissioned a third party risk assessment of cosmetic contact lenses. This study determined that the risks associated with non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses were indeed sufficient enough to justify regulation by Health Canada.
However, to this day there has been a succinct lack of progress made on this health issue. This is despite numerous reports on the dangers of lack of regulation on the issue.
Motion No. 409 would open up the regulatory book and allow Health Canada to ensure that manufacturers of these contact lenses would be forced to assume a certain degree of stewardship responsibility for the distribution and sales of these non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses.
Without this regulation, studies, such as the 2003 review of “Ocular Complications Associated with the Use of Cosmetic Contact Lenses from Unlicensed Vendors” taken from Eye & Contact Lens: Science and Clinical Practice, vol. 29, issue 4, will be for naught.
This study used retrospective, observational and clinical settings to determine that coloured contact lenses being dispensed without a prescription or proper fitting procedures being utilized posed a sincere health risk. As such, the study was successful in calling attention to the unauthorized sale of cosmetic contact lenses.
Since the initial appearance of health issues related to non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses appearing on the radar of health and eye care professionals, there has been an influx of Canadian reviews by organizations such as CAO, COS and the Optician Association of Canada that show uninformed lens wearers are increasingly experiencing acute vision threatening infections and inflammations in addition to a ciliary flush in one or both eyes. This is in addition to the more common conjunctivitis.
Other common issues that appear in association with contact lens use include: corneal abrasions, giant papillary conjunctivitis, corneal ulcers and microbial keratitis.
In all of my meetings with eye care professionals, I have noticed a common theme among the repeated calls to action on this issue. There are three main areas of concern recognized by eye care professionals.
It has been deemed essential that regarding a regulatory framework for non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses there should be a consistent legislative and regulatory framework for the federal regulation of contact lenses.
In addition to the call for a consistent legislative and regulatory framework of this issue, it was also deemed critical that there be a transparent, evidence and science-based process when changes are being considered to regulations that affect the eye care profession.
Moreover, it should be an inclusive process that takes into account the expertise of eye care professions, who have been calling attention to this serious issues for quite some time now.
Furthermore, supporters of Motion No. 409, within the eye care profession, are quite prepared to support any changes to existing parameters regarding the existing framework, and are willing to assist where necessary.
There is a reason why I am passionate about this motion and it has to do with our responsibility in this House to ensure the safety of Canadians, especially in regard to their own personal health.
Furthermore, the support of the various members of the CAO and COS is a testament to the commitment of qualified eye care professionals to ensure that this motion is properly supported.
It is also important to note that Health Canada is fully aware of the repercussions of this motion and, as such, is supportive in its views that non-corrective lenses must come under the same regulation as corrective lenses. Only with the support of the House is this possible.
I call on fellow parliamentarians today to support Motion No. 409.