Contact Lenses

Today I received a letter from my eye doctor informing me that I was due for an eye examination. It has been one year since I have had my eye examined, and my doctor seemed to feel that my eyes would have changed sufficiently to warrant another checkup. I felt differently. My eyesight has not changed, and I would know; I see well enough to make out details that people with 20/20 vision cannot see. However, when I told him this, my doctor cited an Oklahoma law stating that, had I not received an eye examination in the last year by a licensed medical doctor, a hold would be placed on my prescription, and I would not be able to purchase any more contacts.

Apparently, in Oklahoma, contact lenses are a controlled substance, and you to pay for an annual eye exam in order to wear them. This of course, is to protect the public; you wouldn't want rogue, unlicensed eye examiners writing you a prescription for much cheaper than a licensed doctor, like they do in every other state. We can't expose our docs to the competition that is capitalism; it's so ... Tacky.

Never mind that you that, at any pharmacy, a minor can buy unlimited quantities of hypodermic syringes without a prescription.

This is yet another example of the corruption that we end up with, having the government interfere with the medical industry. This law was not intended to protect the public; it was intended, obviously, to drive up business in the ophthalmology sector, by outlawing competition from optometrists.