Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals’ antibiotic Avelox has been linked to serious eye injuries, including uveitis, which is the inflammation of the uvea — the middle layer of the eye that consists of the iris, ciliary body and choroid, glaucoma and irreversible vision loss.

Avelox is part of a class of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolones. Other fluoroquinolone antibiotics include levofloxacin (Levaquin), ciprofloxacin (Cipro), moxifloxacin (Avelox), norfloxacin (Noroxin), ofloxacin (Floxin), and gemifloxacin (Factive).

Studies have found that people who take Avelox are at an increased risk of uveitis (inflammation of the inner eye), which is the third leading cause of blindness.

In October 2014, JAMA Ophthalmology published a study suggesting that Avelox and Cipro increased the risk of uveitis, particularly in people who took the drugs for the first time. Avelox users showed three-times the risk compared with non-antibiotic users while Cipro users had twice the risk.

The findings support research from an earlier JAMA study that found Avelox increased the risk of retinal detachment, which happens when the retina peels away from its underlying layer of support tissue. That study found that patients who took fluoroquinolones were five times more likely to suffer from a detached retina. A detached retina can lead to blindness or other permanent vision problems. And retinal detachment is one of the complications of uveitis.

Avelox is a broad-spectrum fluoroquinolone antibiotic prescribed by doctors to treat acute bacterial sinusitis, acute bacterial exacerbation of chronic bronchitis, community acquired pneumonia, skin infections and intra-abdominal infections.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Avelox in 1999 and soon thereafter it was linked to severe and potentially-life threatening injuries.

After Avelox lawsuits filed by a consumer advocacy group and the attorney general of Illinois, the FDA in 2008 ordered “Black Box warnings”— the agency’s most serious alert — to be put on Avelox labels. The Black Box warning is also now included on two other fluoroquinolone antibiotics, Cipro and Levaquin.

Fluoroquinolone use increased threefold in U.S. emergency rooms between 1995 and 2002, the same year they became the most commonly prescribed class of antibiotics for adults. Nearly half — 43 percent — of the fluoroquinolone prescriptions were for conditions not approved by the FDA, such as acute bronchitis, otitis media as well as for acute respiratory illnesses that are viral rather than bacterial in nature.

Fluoroquinolones have also been linked to nerve damage. In 2013, the FDA issued a warning that serious nerve damage could occur soon after taking Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox, Noroxin, and Factive. The nerve damage often manifests within a week or less of taking the medication and may be permanent.

The following year, the medical journal Neurology published a study finding that taking these fluoroquinolone antibiotics doubled the risk of permanent peripheral neuropathy, a condition that occurs when the peripheral nerves connecting the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body become damaged.

Peripheral nerve damage interrupts communication between the brain other parts of the body which can impair muscle movement, prevent normal sensation in the arms and legs, and cause pain.