Contact Solution Maker Failed To Report Problems

If left untreated, the amoeba can damage the eye, cause blindness and, in rare cases, result in a deadly infection of the brain and spinal cord.

The FDA and CDC pressured the company to pull its formula off the market after concluding that contact lens wearers who had the infection were at least seven times more likely to have used Complete MoisturePlus than those who didn't get the infection.

It's still unclear what caused the link, but the company blamed improper handling and shipping of the product.

By June 2007, the CDC had confirmed nearly 160 cases of the infection in patients across the U.S.

One of those patients was Paige Reichardt of Valparaiso, Ind., a lifelong contact lens user who became infected in 2005. Over the next year she underwent a series of surgeries to remove her cataract lens, iris and cornea. Ultimately surgeons had to remove her entire eye and replace it with a glass prosthetic.

"I describe the pain as a feeling that someone has thrown hydrochloric acid in your eye and then stabbed it with knives," Reichardt wrote in a 2007 editorial on the Prevent Blindness America Web site. She declined to be interviewed for this article, citing instructions from her lawyers.