Can photochromic lenses be worn in an industrial environment?
A. Photochromic lenses darken when exposed to sunlight and lighten when used indoors. The use of these lenses in the workplace has been controversial. Photochromic lenses should be used with care in operations requiring critical acuity or quick reaction to visual stimuli, since the change in tint is not immediate. Special care should be taken for those work operations where a worker passes from outdoors to indoors in the course of the job—e.g., a forklift operator. Although photochromic lenses absorb ultraviolet light, they should not be used as a substitute for the proper protector in hazardous optical radiation environments.
