Halloween is coming and there is always plenty of scary goings on for eye care practitioners. One of the scariest is decorative or “circle” contact lenses. This time of year, they pop up like pumpkins in costume stores and online, and you don’t need a prescription to buy them - your credit card will do. A quick Google search for “Halloween contact lenses” yielded three costume shops and an online seller in my area on the first of 19 pages of results. I started the purchasing process online for one of the shops and the online seller, and in both cases, got all the way to the checkout without having to verify my prescription. Terrifying!

Will it be sunny or cloudy? Probability of rain? The forecast is some of the first data we consult at the start of the day. Based on it, we decide how to dress, whether or not take an umbrella and even consider outdoor plans. Most of the time we ignore the existence or relevance of another index as important and accessible: UV RADIATION.