Bausch & Lomb Beats Back Lens-cleaner Lawsuits

BEN DOBBIN

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — Bausch & Lomb Inc., rocked by the worldwide recall of its flagship contact lens solution in 2006, has beaten back scientific claims blaming ReNu with MoistureLoc cleaner for a flurry of non-fungal eye infections.

The optical products maker has already paid out more than $250 million to settle roughly 600 lawsuits linking MoistureLoc to a potentially blinding fungal infection known as Fusarium keratitis.

But after a hearing in New York in June on the admissibility of expert evidence, a federal judge in South Carolina said there's no reliable scientific basis for arguing that MoistureLoc caused another 1,024 lens wearers across the United States to contract assorted bacterial, viral and parasitic infections.

Attorneys relying on the expert opinion of corneal specialist Dr. Elisabeth Cohen "did not submit any peer-reviewed studies, articles or case reports concluding that there is a causal relationship between MoistureLoc and non-Fusarium infections," Judge David Norton wrote in a ruling issued Friday.

"Dr. Cohen's theory as to general causation is built on an unsupported hypothesis, and is thus fundamentally flawed and must be excluded," added Norton, the chief U.S. District judge in Charleston, S.C.