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Costco sued J&J Vision Care a few years ago over anti-consumer behavior in the contact lenses industry (I characterize it as anti-consumer. The Vision Care indu

Costco sued J&J Vision Care a few years ago over anti-consumer behavior in the contact lenses industry (I characterize it as anti-consumer. The Vision Care industry characterizes it as pro-consumer). They dropped the lawsuit in 2016, probably because Johnson and Johnson discontinued the practice: https://www.law360.com/articles/800034/costco-drops-antitrust-suit-against-j-j-over-contact-lenses https://www.law360.com/articles/800034/costco-drops-antitrus... Costco did support a different lawsuit by state of Utah against Contact Lens Manufacturers. The Manufacturers lost their first appeal in December 2016: http://www.sltrib.com/news/4731439-155/contact-lens-makers-lose-one-in http://www.sltrib.com/news/4731439-155/contact-lens-makers-l... Hopefully this will begin reducing the prices of contact lenses. Kudos to Costco for sticking up for its customers. Here is one manufacturer's opinion on this matter: https://www.alcon.com/content/unilateral-pricing-policy https://www.alcon.com/content/unilateral-pricing-policy

yourapostasy 10y ago
WRT prices of contact lenses, I use an ultrasonic contact lens cleaner with plain saline (Ringer's will also work if that is cheaper in your area), then storing the contact lenses in my lens solution to disinfect. Far better comfort profile, for far longer, than I ever obtained following the manufacturer instructions of 20 seconds rubbing on each side, and 5 seconds rinsing on each side. The saline is half as much as the normal lens solution, I use it liberally to rinse the ultrasonic cleaner, I get more use out of my contacts, and I use far less normal lens solution. So far I haven't encountered any drawbacks, YMMV.
- snissn 10y ago
  dude just go to dailies
  - nether 10y ago
    Seriously unless you're budget constrained, so much better. Cost twice as much as 2-week lenses, but you get to crack open a sterile pair each morning. Toss em at night.
    - wapz 10y ago
      Yup they are so much more comfortable. If you are running low and only wear them around 12 hours, you can even clean them and wear them another day (definitely not recommended by the manufacturer or eye doctor).
      - computator 10y ago
        > not recommended by the manufacturer or eye doctor I never found a technical explanation of why you shouldn't reuse dailies after overnight cleaning. I looked at papers, manufacturers' websites, and spoke to two ophthalmologists. Though not a safety issue, my own experience is that dailies are more fragile than long-term lenses. (Could this be deliberate?) They fit less comfortably after a week of reuse. Also, they sometimes develop a very tiny nick at the periphery after many days; when that happens you feel it the moment you put it in. My rule of thumb is that I reuse dailies for 5 days--disinfecting each day of course--and throw them out. The ophthalmologists, who are friends and can speak freely with me, agree that my regimen is fine.
        wapz 10y ago
        My personal belief is that since they are made more fragile (I believe it's intentional), you risk the contact tearing while in your eye or not keeping the shape which could maybe cause a deformation to your cornea/eye(?) if used for a prolong time. I only think this because I always swam with my 2 week disposables in and my eye doctor got 'angry' when he saw my contacts were a little deformed from water exposure.
        iicc 10y ago
        It's not the contact tearing that causes issues, it's infection. eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthamoeba_keratitis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthamoeba_keratitis
        angry_octet 10y ago
        Recovering several pieces of torn contact from your eye is a great experience. The torn bits slide around to the side of the eyeball. Uugh.
  - abritinthebay 10y ago
    Assuming they can. I can't - they don't fix my eyesight. That's actually quite common. Dalies are great if you can have them but they don't fix all conditions.
    - rincebrain 10y ago
      What about your vision is such that dailies can't correct for it, but other contacts can? Is it that you can't make use of "soft" contacts in general for this, or just (presumably) that making contacts to correct for this would be sufficiently costly for daily disposibles as to be infeasible?
      - jpwgarrison 10y ago
        Not the parent, but in my case - mild astigmatism - dailies are too big and floppy and don't stay put on my eye. 14 or 30 day are thicker and easier to put in. I use them rarely - just for skiing, and I end up using the 14 day ones once or twice and then throwing them away. But the daily ones are just mechanically awkward and uncomfortable.
        rincebrain 10y ago
        Hm, I have mild astigmatism as well, but I've never explored whether or not I could get dailies. Good to know.
        _MK_ 10y ago
        I'm on dailies with astigmatism and it has gone well. Ask your eye doctor about your options.
        hvidgaard 10y ago
        I have found a few dailies that correct fairly severe astigmatism and is comfortable to wear. They work, when they stay put. Unfortunately they tend to rotate ever so slightly every now and then, and it so annoying that I'm back to glasses
  - tallanvor 10y ago
    Dailies aren't appropriate if you want the option of sleeping with your contacts in. I rarely do it, but I still want the option just in case I end up spending the night somewhere unexpectedly.
  - yourapostasy 10y ago
    Can't yet, much as I'd like. :-( I require torics, and for some reason the many dailies we tried wouldn't stay in their "up" orientation. My optometrist said that in a year or two, he thinks some of the newer dailies in the development pipeline might address my experience, and we'll try dailies again at that time. Has something to do with the weighting of the lenses, I gathered from overhearing his conversation with one of his assistants, but the sudden, unpredictable blurring after blinking being a safety hazard was all the explanation I needed at the time.
    - qqg3 10y ago
      Cooper Vision do some great dailies that are torics, I've been using them for years.
      - yourapostasy 10y ago
        Another Cooper Vision recommendation, I'll really have to check them out, thanks!
    - adav 10y ago
      I use toric dailies and it's the blinking that aligns the orientation. Once the angle is correct after blinking, the lenses then don't seem to rotate further. (I use '1-day Acuvue Moist for Astigmatism')
      - yourapostasy 10y ago
        Clarification: even sequential blinking did not realign the lenses we tried, for some odd reason. Dailies would be really awesome to be able to wear, because I only wear contacts for water sports and when dressing up, so I end up throwing out the 30-day lenses after only a handful of uses. Thanks for pointing me towards what you use, I'll ask my guy to try them on me if he hasn't already when I go in for my annual.
    - blincoln 10y ago
      Did you try Biofinity toric lenses? That's what I've been using for several years after I started having that exact problem.
  - gpderetta 10y ago
    That's interesting. I did wear contact lenses (either 15 days or 1 month) for a decade. After a while my sight deteriorated further (unrelated to contact lens use) and I started using glasses more, and then exclusively. When I tried to switch back to contacts, with a better prescription [1], I found out that I couldn't stand a full day of them anymore, they just weren't comfortable. Later I realized that I had switched to dailies; when I tried bi-weeklies or monthlies again, they were still as comfortable as I remembered. [1] I'm short sighted, and although I'm technically not astigmatic, I have need a strong astigmatism correction as well. For the same reason I can't get LASIK either.
  - driverdan 10y ago
    For some reason daily contacts dried out very fast for me. Often they would be uncomfortable in 8-10 hours. I didn't have this problem with bi-weeklies.
- electrum 10y ago
  Get LASIK. Having perfect eyesight and not having to deal with contacts or glasses is worth every penny.
  - eps 10y ago
    A risk of ending up with halos is not worth it.
    - xienze 10y ago
      Or worse. It's the reason I'll never have the surgery... the risk is very small but if something were to happen to my eyesight it would be devastating. Glasses aren't so bad.
      - grinich 10y ago
        The complication risk of modern LASIK is actually nearly identical to wearing contacts every day.
        gambiting 10y ago
        Sure. But halos seem pretty common - every person I know who got LASIK done in the past 10 years experiences got them to some extent, my dad almost had a nervous breakdown because for the first year after the surgery the halos were so bad he couldn't really drive at night - they sort of faded away with time but he said they were always there and in hindsight, he wouldn't have selected surgery.
        JumpCrisscross 10y ago
        Either of you have sources on these frequencies?
        gambiting 10y ago
        I would be a bit difficult to give source on my personal friends and my dad, it's an anecdote :P Treat it like everything on the internet said by a random person - with caution. Just because everyone I know who got LASIK done has halos doesn't mean it's commonplace - could be just a coincidence.
- tarpherder 10y ago
  A No-Rub solution was not an option? I can just take em out, store them in No-Rub solution overnight and repeat that for a month before they start to deteriorate.
- amalag 10y ago
  I didn't like ultrasonic cleaners, I found the hydrogen peroxide based cleaners to be amazing.
ak217 10y ago
It already has. The Acuvue dailies have gone down in price by half since last year, after J&J stopped enforcing the fixed price floor.
- aluminussoma 10y ago
  The particular brand I track has gone down 15% over the past 6 months (mostly since January). Some products are not decreasing as quickly as others.
eddieroger 10y ago
I always hear stories about Costco being great to their employees, but now seeing that they're so pro-consumer as well makes me feel even better about shopping there pretty regularly. I'm not even their target market, but it's one of my favorite stores.
- Humdeee 10y ago
  Costco is very pro-consumer. Management will not stock an item if they feel it's priced too high. Their Kirkland Signature brand is also pretty good quality I've found. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Sales_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Sales_model
  - Declanomous 10y ago
    I worked for an insurance broker in the small business sector for a while generating new lead sources. Costco was one of the organizations I was talking to. They were very emphatic that they did not want to provide insurance through brokers, because they felt a broker was unable to guarantee the level of service they wanted. I was very impressed by that. Our CEO, not so much. I'm sure he still thinks Costco hates money.
    - eddieroger 10y ago
      Interesting. Maybe it's not so much that Costco hates money, they just love their customers more. It's possible, and apparently works.
  - tehlike 10y ago
    To me this sounds like a double edged sword. Though, i do like costco personally and shop there frequently.
    - thefalcon 10y ago
      Having sold to CostCo before, I can attest that it forces inefficiencies out of the process very quickly. And they will not accept an inferior product, either. Also they have efficiency built into every aspect of their business, down to the specific layout of the shipping crates to be sent, to minimize worker labor for setup and display of product. I don't see where the other (bad) edge of the sword is.
deadowl 10y ago
Vermont gas distributors have the highest profit margins in the nation. The gasoline oligopoly here is committed to creating high barriers to entry. This includes buying their competitors just to remove the tanks on premise. http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2015/06/22/lawsuit-alleges-price-fixing-by-vermont-gasoline-companies http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2015/06/22/la... Costco decided they were going to distribute gasoline at its Colchester, VT location. They spent years in court battles with Skip Vallee, owner of R.L. Vallee, Inc., eventually went up to the Vermont Supreme Court, which handed out a decision last year that Costco is permitted to build a gas station. http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2016/08/05/vermont-supreme-court-approves-costco-gas-pumps-rejects-vallee-appeal http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2016/08/05/ve...
munchbunny 10y ago
While we're on the subject, I'm glad Costco does this. I was just shopping for new eyeglasses this week, and the difference between going to an in-network shop and going to Costco (out of network) is beyond insane. For something that will cost me under $100 for both frames and lenses after reimbursement from Costco, I estimated that I would have paid almost $300 out of pocket after in-network coverage. Costco might not do enough volume to drive market cost down, but I certainly appreciate that they provide a sane alternative to crazy markups on eyeglasses in stores.

yourapostasy 10y ago

WRT prices of contact lenses, I use an ultrasonic contact lens cleaner with plain saline (Ringer's will also work if that is cheaper in your area), then storing the contact lenses in my lens solution to disinfect. Far better comfort profile, for far longer, than I ever obtained following the manufacturer instructions of 20 seconds rubbing on each side, and 5 seconds rinsing on each side. The saline is half as much as the normal lens solution, I use it liberally to rinse the ultrasonic cleaner, I get more use out of my contacts, and I use far less normal lens solution. So far I haven't encountered any drawbacks, YMMV.

snissn 10y ago
dude just go to dailies
- nether 10y ago
  Seriously unless you're budget constrained, so much better. Cost twice as much as 2-week lenses, but you get to crack open a sterile pair each morning. Toss em at night.
  - wapz 10y ago
    Yup they are so much more comfortable. If you are running low and only wear them around 12 hours, you can even clean them and wear them another day (definitely not recommended by the manufacturer or eye doctor).
    - computator 10y ago
      > not recommended by the manufacturer or eye doctor I never found a technical explanation of why you shouldn't reuse dailies after overnight cleaning. I looked at papers, manufacturers' websites, and spoke to two ophthalmologists. Though not a safety issue, my own experience is that dailies are more fragile than long-term lenses. (Could this be deliberate?) They fit less comfortably after a week of reuse. Also, they sometimes develop a very tiny nick at the periphery after many days; when that happens you feel it the moment you put it in. My rule of thumb is that I reuse dailies for 5 days--disinfecting each day of course--and throw them out. The ophthalmologists, who are friends and can speak freely with me, agree that my regimen is fine.
      - wapz 10y ago
        My personal belief is that since they are made more fragile (I believe it's intentional), you risk the contact tearing while in your eye or not keeping the shape which could maybe cause a deformation to your cornea/eye(?) if used for a prolong time. I only think this because I always swam with my 2 week disposables in and my eye doctor got 'angry' when he saw my contacts were a little deformed from water exposure.
        iicc 10y ago
        It's not the contact tearing that causes issues, it's infection. eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthamoeba_keratitis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthamoeba_keratitis
      - angry_octet 10y ago
        Recovering several pieces of torn contact from your eye is a great experience. The torn bits slide around to the side of the eyeball. Uugh.
- abritinthebay 10y ago
  Assuming they can. I can't - they don't fix my eyesight. That's actually quite common. Dalies are great if you can have them but they don't fix all conditions.
  - rincebrain 10y ago
    What about your vision is such that dailies can't correct for it, but other contacts can? Is it that you can't make use of "soft" contacts in general for this, or just (presumably) that making contacts to correct for this would be sufficiently costly for daily disposibles as to be infeasible?
    - jpwgarrison 10y ago
      Not the parent, but in my case - mild astigmatism - dailies are too big and floppy and don't stay put on my eye. 14 or 30 day are thicker and easier to put in. I use them rarely - just for skiing, and I end up using the 14 day ones once or twice and then throwing them away. But the daily ones are just mechanically awkward and uncomfortable.
      - rincebrain 10y ago
        Hm, I have mild astigmatism as well, but I've never explored whether or not I could get dailies. Good to know.
        _MK_ 10y ago
        I'm on dailies with astigmatism and it has gone well. Ask your eye doctor about your options.
      - hvidgaard 10y ago
        I have found a few dailies that correct fairly severe astigmatism and is comfortable to wear. They work, when they stay put. Unfortunately they tend to rotate ever so slightly every now and then, and it so annoying that I'm back to glasses
- tallanvor 10y ago
  Dailies aren't appropriate if you want the option of sleeping with your contacts in. I rarely do it, but I still want the option just in case I end up spending the night somewhere unexpectedly.
- yourapostasy 10y ago
  Can't yet, much as I'd like. :-( I require torics, and for some reason the many dailies we tried wouldn't stay in their "up" orientation. My optometrist said that in a year or two, he thinks some of the newer dailies in the development pipeline might address my experience, and we'll try dailies again at that time. Has something to do with the weighting of the lenses, I gathered from overhearing his conversation with one of his assistants, but the sudden, unpredictable blurring after blinking being a safety hazard was all the explanation I needed at the time.
  - qqg3 10y ago
    Cooper Vision do some great dailies that are torics, I've been using them for years.
    - yourapostasy 10y ago
      Another Cooper Vision recommendation, I'll really have to check them out, thanks!
  - adav 10y ago
    I use toric dailies and it's the blinking that aligns the orientation. Once the angle is correct after blinking, the lenses then don't seem to rotate further. (I use '1-day Acuvue Moist for Astigmatism')
    - yourapostasy 10y ago
      Clarification: even sequential blinking did not realign the lenses we tried, for some odd reason. Dailies would be really awesome to be able to wear, because I only wear contacts for water sports and when dressing up, so I end up throwing out the 30-day lenses after only a handful of uses. Thanks for pointing me towards what you use, I'll ask my guy to try them on me if he hasn't already when I go in for my annual.
  - blincoln 10y ago
    Did you try Biofinity toric lenses? That's what I've been using for several years after I started having that exact problem.
- gpderetta 10y ago
  That's interesting. I did wear contact lenses (either 15 days or 1 month) for a decade. After a while my sight deteriorated further (unrelated to contact lens use) and I started using glasses more, and then exclusively. When I tried to switch back to contacts, with a better prescription [1], I found out that I couldn't stand a full day of them anymore, they just weren't comfortable. Later I realized that I had switched to dailies; when I tried bi-weeklies or monthlies again, they were still as comfortable as I remembered. [1] I'm short sighted, and although I'm technically not astigmatic, I have need a strong astigmatism correction as well. For the same reason I can't get LASIK either.
- driverdan 10y ago
  For some reason daily contacts dried out very fast for me. Often they would be uncomfortable in 8-10 hours. I didn't have this problem with bi-weeklies.
electrum 10y ago
Get LASIK. Having perfect eyesight and not having to deal with contacts or glasses is worth every penny.
- eps 10y ago
  A risk of ending up with halos is not worth it.
  - xienze 10y ago
    Or worse. It's the reason I'll never have the surgery... the risk is very small but if something were to happen to my eyesight it would be devastating. Glasses aren't so bad.
    - grinich 10y ago
      The complication risk of modern LASIK is actually nearly identical to wearing contacts every day.
      - gambiting 10y ago
        Sure. But halos seem pretty common - every person I know who got LASIK done in the past 10 years experiences got them to some extent, my dad almost had a nervous breakdown because for the first year after the surgery the halos were so bad he couldn't really drive at night - they sort of faded away with time but he said they were always there and in hindsight, he wouldn't have selected surgery.
        JumpCrisscross 10y ago
        Either of you have sources on these frequencies?
        gambiting 10y ago
        I would be a bit difficult to give source on my personal friends and my dad, it's an anecdote :P Treat it like everything on the internet said by a random person - with caution. Just because everyone I know who got LASIK done has halos doesn't mean it's commonplace - could be just a coincidence.
tarpherder 10y ago
A No-Rub solution was not an option? I can just take em out, store them in No-Rub solution overnight and repeat that for a month before they start to deteriorate.
amalag 10y ago
I didn't like ultrasonic cleaners, I found the hydrogen peroxide based cleaners to be amazing.

ak217 10y ago

It already has. The Acuvue dailies have gone down in price by half since last year, after J&J stopped enforcing the fixed price floor.

aluminussoma 10y ago
The particular brand I track has gone down 15% over the past 6 months (mostly since January). Some products are not decreasing as quickly as others.

eddieroger 10y ago

I always hear stories about Costco being great to their employees, but now seeing that they're so pro-consumer as well makes me feel even better about shopping there pretty regularly. I'm not even their target market, but it's one of my favorite stores.

Humdeee 10y ago
Costco is very pro-consumer. Management will not stock an item if they feel it's priced too high. Their Kirkland Signature brand is also pretty good quality I've found. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Sales_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Sales_model
- Declanomous 10y ago
  I worked for an insurance broker in the small business sector for a while generating new lead sources. Costco was one of the organizations I was talking to. They were very emphatic that they did not want to provide insurance through brokers, because they felt a broker was unable to guarantee the level of service they wanted. I was very impressed by that. Our CEO, not so much. I'm sure he still thinks Costco hates money.
  - eddieroger 10y ago
    Interesting. Maybe it's not so much that Costco hates money, they just love their customers more. It's possible, and apparently works.
- tehlike 10y ago
  To me this sounds like a double edged sword. Though, i do like costco personally and shop there frequently.
  - thefalcon 10y ago
    Having sold to CostCo before, I can attest that it forces inefficiencies out of the process very quickly. And they will not accept an inferior product, either. Also they have efficiency built into every aspect of their business, down to the specific layout of the shipping crates to be sent, to minimize worker labor for setup and display of product. I don't see where the other (bad) edge of the sword is.

deadowl 10y ago

Vermont gas distributors have the highest profit margins in the nation. The gasoline oligopoly here is committed to creating high barriers to entry. This includes buying their competitors just to remove the tanks on premise. http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2015/06/22/lawsuit-alleges-price-fixing-by-vermont-gasoline-companies http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2015/06/22/la... Costco decided they were going to distribute gasoline at its Colchester, VT location. They spent years in court battles with Skip Vallee, owner of R.L. Vallee, Inc., eventually went up to the Vermont Supreme Court, which handed out a decision last year that Costco is permitted to build a gas station. http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2016/08/05/vermont-supreme-court-approves-costco-gas-pumps-rejects-vallee-appeal http://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2016/08/05/ve...

munchbunny 10y ago

While we're on the subject, I'm glad Costco does this. I was just shopping for new eyeglasses this week, and the difference between going to an in-network shop and going to Costco (out of network) is beyond insane. For something that will cost me under $100 for both frames and lenses after reimbursement from Costco, I estimated that I would have paid almost $300 out of pocket after in-network coverage. Costco might not do enough volume to drive market cost down, but I certainly appreciate that they provide a sane alternative to crazy markups on eyeglasses in stores.