Is Bausch & Lomb promoting blindly?

As I've recently returned to wearing contact lenses, maybe the controversy surrounding Bausch & Lomb's handling of the fact that a rare, but potentially blinding, eye infection mostly involved users of its ReNu with MoistureLoc has been rather top of mind—particularly after my optometrist pointedly told me to use lens solution from another manufacturer. (Since then, Bausch & Lomb has permanently pulled the product.) In that context, I've found it a little odd that as recently as last Friday, I've seen ads online for another product in the ReNu line, with no acknowledgement that the company's woes—critics have charged that its actions in the situation were tardy—are continuing to make headlines. Further, when you go to the Web page about MoistureLoc at the company's Web site, it only tells visitors to "see an important press release" about the product, and then blithely goes on to talk about its benefits. That's practically a cyber-crime! As for the ads I've seen online for other ReNu products, the company has every right to continue advertising, and no doubt needs to promote its other products more heavily to make up for the revenue loss from pulling MoistureLoc, but there's something a little head in the sand about the company's promotional approach. The knee-jerk reaction I had, when first seeing one, was that they were continuing to well, blindly, promote a product that could make me blind.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

May 22, 2006 | Permalink