WHO would have thought that washing your face with tap water could be so dangerous? According to New Scientist (10 January, p 15) it can be, for people who wash while wearing contact lenses. They risk the ravages of a water-borne amoeba called Acanthamoeba which can cause a painful and potentially blinding eye infection.
About 1 in 30,000 contact lens wearers in the UK contract the disease. The trouble is the organism is resistant to treatment and difficult to eradicate. I asked the Department of Health what guidance it can offer.
Rosie Winterton, the health minister with responsibility for…
