Stringent cleaning regimen for greater protection in contact lensusage
If you opt to use contact lenses over spectacles, be very sure to keep both your lenses and the storage cases meticulously clean at all times.
A Consumer Council survey on users' experience of contact lenses (CL) has revealed a worrying level of users who failed in maintaining the hygiene of their lenses and storage cases.
Such failure may give rise to various eye complications including CL-related diseases such as Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis and corneal ulcer, warned the Council.
According to the survey on 404 contact lens users, by and large, the vast majority do clean their contact lenses everyday. This is a good practice which all contact lens users, conventional or disposable (with the exception for daily disposable lenses), must strictly adhere to.
However, 12 respondents of one-to-two-week and monthly disposable lenses confessed to not having cleaned their lenses at all.
Equally unsatisfactory is the oversight of some users to regularly remove the protein (from eye secretion) deposit on contact lens.
Users are alerted to the hazard that when the amount of such deposit increases, it may reduce the gas permeability of the lens and form a rough surface on it which may irritate the eye. Bacteria may also grow on this protein deposit.
On maintaining the hygiene of storage cases, some users reported that they have been using the same storage case for more than a year, or they will replace it only when broken. Some did not replace it even when broken.
Data collected by the Council has indicated that these users have a higher chance of contracting uncomfortable eye conditions than those who replace their storage cases within one year.
Users are advised to clean their storage cases with disinfecting solutions every time they take out the lenses to use. And keep the cases dry or bacteria in them may form a biofilm which is resistant to even disinfecting solution. In such case, the cases will need to be disinfected in boiling water.
As more consumers are opting to use contact lenses of the disposable type, the Council wishes to draw their attention to a general misconception of disposable lens users.
Disposable contact lens users, experts warned, have the tendency of adopting a much less stringent cleaning regimen for such lenses. In fact, some disposable lens users in the survey reportedly did not clean their lenses at all. Such misconception is potentially dangerous, increasing the chance of contracting various CL-related eye complications, especially corneal ulcer and infection.
APRs and tax loans
Consumers are bombarded with an array of tax loan offers that are both innovative and complicated.
The Consumer Council has analysed a number of offers and found that not all are quite what they claim to be.
Central to the issue is the calculation of the Annualised Percentage Rates (APRs) of interest in relation to these loans.
While the use of a standardised APR by the industry is intended to reflect the total cost of credit and to facilitate consumer comparison between different charging structures, this may not always be the case in the actual marketplace.
For instance, some APRs may reflect only the part of the loan with benefits but not the loan package as a whole, as shown in the case in which interest is reduced through the purchase of shopping vouchers with part of the loan amount.
In another example, the cited APR for a revolving credit offer does not reflect the raised interest rate after the promotional period, the annual fees, as well as the time value of interest rebate.
Currently, revolving credits are required to include fees and charges but not the annual fees in the calculation of APRs, though the latter needs to be disclosed for the information of consumers.
Some tax loan offers claiming 0% interest actually involve a bundle of tax loan and personal loan. This means that if the higher interest rate of personal loan and the time value of rebates are taken into account, the resulting APRs are substantially higher.
One innovative feature allows borrowers to settle the monthly repayment by credit card. By taking advantage of the interest free grace period of credit card, borrowers can effectively defer the repayment at no cost, and thus lower the APR. However, borrowers who cannot repay their credit card outstanding balance in full every month, run the risk of swapping a lower-rate interest tax loan for a higher-rate credit card debt.
Another innovation is a flexible repayment programme by which borrowers can apply, subject to approval, to defer monthly repayment. This feature is particularly helpful to borrowers who may have cash flow problem occasionally.
Also on offer for tax loans are other beneficial features, such as tax return and interest rebate, by which borrowers can effectively lower the APRs but only provided they are able to make timely repayments.
The Consumer Council has these recommendations for the consideration of banks:
- Any APR should reflect truthfully the full cost of the credit and not only the portion of the loan with benefits.
- If the interest rate is to be adjusted upwards after an initial promotion period, the APR should reflect this factor too.
- The APRs of revolving credits to include also the annual fees to facilitate comparison with other loan offers.
- Transparency is important with detailed disclosure of all assumptions on which the quoted APRs are based, and all of the fees and charges in relation to the loan.
Consumers are advised to carefully assess their own individual needs in the choice of tax loan, taking into account not just the benefits offered but the total cost of credit too.
For guidance, they can consult the report in this issue of CHOICE. The examples cited in the report will provide useful reference for consumers, though they should not be compared directly as each plan has its own different conditions attached.
SAR disclosure on mobile phones in face of public concern
Mobile phone manufacturers will disclose, on the basis of a standard test methodology, the radiation levels of their products in a bid to ease public concern.
This was conveyed to the Consumer Council in a recent meeting with the Mobile Manufacturers Forum (MMF), an international association of radio equipment manufacturers whose members include most major brands of mobile phones.
The MMF has agreed to disclose the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) which is a standardized measurement of the amount of radio frequency (RF) energy absorbed by the body when using a mobile phone. The SAR information will be provided in the user guide or as a leaflet or brochure in the box.
But, according to the MMF, any variations in SAR will not be taken to suggest that there are variations in safety. As while there may be differences in SAR levels among phone models, all mobile phones must meet RF exposure guidelines.
The Council believes that although the issue of health threat posed by mobile phone radiation is still a matter of extensive scientific research, the disclosure of SAR values will provide a reference to the worried consumers. The Council, therefore, wishes all mobile phone manufacturers to follow suit to provide the SAR information to the public.
In the December issue of CHOICE were published the results of a separate year-end test on the performance of 56 models of GSM mobile handsets. Since some test methods were modified, the overall scores for the models had also to be re-calculated. Consumers can consult the report for a comprehensive review of mobile phones available on the Hong Kong market.
Consumers' right to choose in mobile phone short message service
Mobile phone consumers of short message service (SMS) have the right to choose whether or not to receive unsolicited promotional messages.
This right to choose - and the right to stop such unsolicited messages - has been agreed upon amongst mobile operators in Hong Kong in an industry Code of Practice.
Effective this month, the SMS enters a new phase of service, enabling mobile phone users to send and receive short messages not only within the same network but other networks as well.
An area of concern is to protect the consumers from being harassed by unsolicited promotional short messages.
The Consumer Council welcomes the new guidelines which have been drawn up in the Code of Practice to safeguard consumer interests.
It is stipulated that unsolicited promotional messages shall ONLY be sent with the recipient's prior consent. It is the sender's obligation to procure such consent.
A recipient who received such unsolicited messages may file a complaint with his or her mobile operator. The complainant shall provide all necessary information on the messages, such as the mobile telephone number of the recipient, the date and time on which the message was received, the full originating address and the contents of the message.
Upon receipt of such complaint, the recipient's operator will handle the case and, if necessary, work with the sender's operator and the sender to resolve the matter. Depending on the circumstances, the sender's operator may suspend the short message service of the sender and the recipient's operator may also implement blocking against the sender.
In the event the service operator fails to comply with the code of conduct, consumers can lodge their complaints to the Office of Telecommunications Authority or the Consumer Council.
Suffocation hazard of uninflated balloons to young children
Balloons are party favourites for young children. But little do parents know about the suffocation hazard presented by uninflated toy balloons and pieces of broken balloons.
As the festive season gets underway, the Consumer Council warned parents and guardians of young children to be alerted to the hazard, and to keep an eye on them when playing with balloons.
In addition, the Customs and Excise Department will continue its enforcement on toy balloons that fail to carry the required safety warning on the choking hazard.
Already 4 importers and wholesalers were prosecuted, under the Toys and Children's Products Safety Ordinance, and fined a total of $36,600. The Department has also detained 1,574 bags of balloons without the required safety markings, and served warning letters to 129 traders.
In a most recent survey, the Consumer Council has found 3 out of 10 samples of balloons still without the appropriate warning.
Between 1998 and 2000, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, 9 children aged 7 months to 11 years died as a result of suffocation involving uninflated balloons or pieces of balloons.
Accidents involving balloons tend to occur in two ways. Some children have sucked uninflated balloons into their mouths, often while attempting to inflate them. This can occur when a child who is blowing up the balloon inhales or takes a breath to prepare for the next blow, and draws the balloon back into the mouth and throat.
The second kind of accident involves balloon pieces. Children have drawn pieces of broken balloons that they were playing with into their throats. If a balloon breaks and is not discarded, some children may continue to play with it, chewing on pieces of the balloon or attempting to blow small bubbles with it. These balloon pieces can easily be sucked into the throat and lungs. Balloons mold to the throat and lungs can completely block breathing.
Because of the danger of suffocation, it is recommended that parents and guardians do not allow children, particularly those under the age of eight, to play with uninflated balloons without supervision. If the balloon breaks, parents are advised to immediately collect the pieces of the broken balloon and dispose of them out of the reach of young children.
Protection for car occupants and pedestrians
How will your car fare in the unlikely tragic event of knocking down a pedestrian?
In the recent Euro NCAP (New Car Assessment Programme) car crash test, one small family car outshone the previously tested samples in pedestrian protection performance.
It achieved 72% of the possible score in the design for pedestrian safety, which is about twice as good as most other cars.
Through the International Consumer Research and Testing, the Consumer Council has participated and published the results of a series of crash tests by Euro NCAP since 1997.
The pedestrian protection score in this test has put to end the myth about the impossibility of designing safety for pedestrians as well as for occupants.
Apart from the achievements of one small family car, pedestrian protection performance remained disappointing for the other cars.
The latest crash test, however, showed significant overall safety improvements in occupant protection. All cars were crash tested in three different collisions: front impact crash, side impact crash and pedestrian test.
The majority of family cars in this test have achieved a 4 stars rating. Back in 1997, out of 13 cars tested, only 1 achieved 4 stars, 5 scored 3 stars and 7 had 2 stars.