In the early Sixties, driven by the efforts of pioneering dentist-turned-contact lens manufacturer Eugene Hirst (original co-founder of Mortimer Hirst in Auckland), New Zealand was the first country outside Czechoslovakia to work with the first viable, hydrophilic soft contact lens (CL) material hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA)*. Though a breakthrough for many people unable to wear glasses, research in Canada soon showed that bacteria could grossly contaminate the polymer matrix of soft contact lenses1.
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