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Gene Therapy Transforms Eyesight Of 12 People With Rare Visual Defect A single injection in a patient's eye brings 'astounding' results. The findings may offer hope for those with macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. Thomas H. Maugh II October 24, 2009 Pennsylvania researchers using gene therapy have made significant improvements in vision in 12 patients with a rare inherited visual defect, a finding that suggests it may be possible to produce similar improvements in a much larger number of patients with retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration. The team last year reported success with three adult patients, an achievement that was...

A Veterans Administration probe that found eight veterans suffered potentially preventable vision loss while under the care of optometrists at a Northern California VA facility is prompting medical groups to call for a state investigation. The groups sent a petition Wednesday to the California Department of Consumer Affairs seeking an evaluation of the care received by the veterans at VA Palo Alto. The patients had glaucoma, a class of eye diseases that can lead to blindness. The California Medical Association, California Academy of Eye Physicians & Surgeons and American Glaucoma Society want the state to suspend a new state law...

Three in four parents are risking their child's eyesight by exposing them to bright sun without appropriate protection, experts warn. Nearly a third of parents in Britain do not buy their children sunglasses, a poll of 2,000 people for the College of Optometrists revealed. Of those who do, nearly half put price before protection and only a quarter buy sunglasses from a trusted brand. The College recommends choosing dark glasses with a CE mark for quality.

LOS ANGELES — As a promising Caltech graduate student in applied physics, Stephen Kurtin could have taken a job offer from Intel at the dawn of the microelectronics era 40 years ago. Instead he followed the path of a lone inventor, gaining more than 30 patents in fields including word processing software and sound systems, culminating in the pair of glasses resting on his nose, which he believes can free nearly two billion people around the world from bifocals, trifocals and progressive lenses. The glasses have a tiny adjustable slider on the bridge of the frame that makes it possible...

Has anyone experienced this or heard of God giving someone much better eyesight where everything becomes much clearer temporarily? I am talking about physical eyesight. I mentioned this has happened to me many times at a ministry meeting this week and one person said it has happened to him once after a dream he believes was from God. I have experienced this after dreams, during fellowship with God, while in the Word of God, approximately 20 to 40 times in the last 25 years. Everything becomes clearer, crystal clear instantly. You can just see a lot better. My normal eyesight...

RAWAH — The town of Rawah has had many improvements since Coalition forces arrived. With their help, and the assistance of several organizations from Colorado, the local residents will soon be able to see the progress a little better. Coalition forces recently delivered over 700 prescription eyeglasses to help provide the residents of Rawah with badly needed prescription lenses. “We are helping increase the quality of life for many of the people who could otherwise not afford prescription glasses,” said Navy Lt. Malcolm Brown, battalion surgeon for 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5. “There have been instances...

Being able to see properly is an important part of health. Unfortunately not everyone can afford to buy themselves proper glasses. Just like used clothes or sneakers, you can donate your used glasses. LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sears, Target, Sunglass Hut, and BJ's Optical all donate used glasses to Give the Gift of Sight, a program that gives glasses to underprivileged people in North America and developing countries. All you have to do is drop your old glasses off at one of the locations and the program collects, cleans, repairs, and catalogs them into a computer system so they'll be properly...

FRIDAY, April 25 (HealthDay News) -- Golf great Tiger Woods lauds vision-correcting LASIK surgery as "life changing." NASA now allows astronauts to undergo the procedure, and the U.S. military says it has been performed on 112,500 military personnel, including pilots. But are some of the risks and complications of this elective surgery being lost in this laudatory celebration? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Ophthalmic Devices Panel convened Friday to discuss post-LASIK quality-of-life issues. Its recommendation at day's end: That the FDA warn more clearly about the risks of the increasingly popular surgery, theAssociated Pressreported. "This is ground-breaking. It's the...

A Blind Eye to Prevention By DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH October 22, 2007 Manhattan resident Debora Grobman, a former federal prosecutor and white-collar criminal defense lawyer, had no idea that she was gradually going blind. But in 2006 a routine eye exam revealed that she was suffering from glaucoma, a degenerative eye disease. Her future vision is now dependent on laser surgery — she had one operation last year and may have another — and a daily regimen of five different types of eye drops. Last week Ms. Grobman spoke at a Washington D.C. conference sponsored by the Glaucoma Foundation and the...

Researchers have discovered the genetic flaws that underlie a major type of glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness. By pinpointing what goes wrong, their finding may provide a basis for devising new treatments. The finding is part of a continuing wave of discoveries about the genes underlying common diseases. The wave began this spring as researchers reported the first results using a new device, DNA-scanning chips containing information on up to 500,000 genetically variable sites across the human genome. By comparing the genomes of patients with those of people in good health, researchers can identify which of the variable sites...

A bionic eye implant that could help restore the sight of millions of blind people could be available to patients within two years. US researchers have been given the go-ahead to implant the prototype device in 50 to 75 patients. The Argus II system uses a spectacle-mounted camera to feed visual information to electrodes in the eye. Patients who tested less-advanced versions of the retinal implant were able to see light, shapes and movement. "What we are trying to do is take real-time images from a camera and convert them into tiny electrical pulses that would jump-start the otherwise...

Like tiny automatons, the cells that form a fish embryo's eyes are chemically programmed to individually amass at the site where the eyes will develop, according to a new study that contradicts traditional views of how organs develop before birth. The study was done only on fish eyes and might or might not apply to humans. "We think organs might be forming by the individual movement of cells," says Martina Rembold, of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the study's lead author. Scientists previously thought that the eyes formed as cells at the sides of the tube-like structure that eventually...

Marion Kleinfeld got up one Sunday morning, picked up the newspaper, settled down to read it, and couldn't see the words. Kleinfeld, 79, of Delray Beach, Fla., already blind in her right eye, lost sight in her other eye because of a condition called wet age-related macular degeneration, AMD, the leading cause of blindness in people over 55. Leaking blood vessels in the back of the eye cause a large black spot in the center of vision. "I could not see at all. It was very frightening," she said. After years of having to tell patients losing their eyesight to...

Growing old with Dave BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Sept. 3, 1995.) Call me a wild and crazy guy if you want, but recently, on a whim, I decided to -- why not? -- turn 48. It's not so bad. Physically, the only serious problem I've noticed is that I can no longer read anything printed in letters smaller than Shaquille O'Neal. Also, to read a document, I have to hold it far from my face; more and more, I find myself holding documents -- this is awkward on airplanes -- with my...

BETHESDA, Md., June 17 — Almost every Thursday during the academic year, a bus carrying a dozen or so Naval Academy midshipmen leaves Annapolis for the 45-minute drive to Bethesda, where Navy doctors perform laser eye surgery on them, one after another, with assembly-line efficiency. Nearly a third of every 1,000-member Naval Academy class now undergoes the procedure, part of a booming trend among military personnel with poor vision. Unlike in the civilian world, where eye surgery is still largely done for convenience or vanity, the procedure's popularity in the armed forces is transforming career choices and daily life in...

Eating carrots, which are rich in the nutrient beta carotene, as well as foods containing the antioxidant vitamins C and E and zinc, results in a significantly reduced risk of age-related macular degeneration in elderly people, a new Dutch study has found. Currently, age-related macular degeneration affects 11.5 percent of white people over the age of 80. The number of people severely disabled by late-stage AMD in the United States is expected to increase by more than 50 percent, to 3 million, in the next 20 years. Previous studies evaluating antioxidants had shown conflicting results, with one major study showing...

For many people over 50, dry eyes are just another sign of aging, no more a nuisance than gray hair or crow's feet. The occasional stinging, redness or gritty feeling in the eye, especially on waking, goes away with a few good blinks. But for millions, dry eyes are a painful, daily problem. Dr. Debra A. Schaumberg, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard, who has studied the prevalence of dry eye syndrome among subjects in the Women's Health Study and the Physicians' Health Study, estimates that as many as nine million Americans, most of them women, have moderate to...

A new study uses advanced brain-scanning technology to cast light on a topic that psychologists have puzzled over for more than half a century: social conformity. The study was based on a famous series of laboratory experiments from the 1950's by a social psychologist, Dr. Solomon Asch. In those early studies, the subjects were shown two cards. On the first was a vertical line. On the second were three lines, one of them the same length as that on the first card. Then the subjects were asked to say which two lines were alike, something that most 5-year-olds could answer...

THE FACTS It was more than 70 years ago that television sets first went on sale in the United States, and perhaps it was just as long ago that a cautious mother, noticing a son or daughter propped in front of that mesmerizing new invention, snapped and barked the words that generations of children would grow up hearing: "Don't sit so close; you'll ruin your eyesight!" Now, scientists can say with certainty that the age-old warning is outdated. Before the 1950's, television sets emitted levels of radiation that after repeated and extended exposure could have heightened the risk of eye...

Stem cells used to restore vision A hospital in West Sussex is pioneering the use of stem cells to restore the eyesight of patients. The trial, being carried out at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, has already helped 40 people see again. The surgery at the hospital has been developed over the past five years. Stem cells from the patient or a donor are used to redevelop the cornea, the transparent film at the front of the eye which lets in light. Opthalmic surgeon Sheraz Daya said: "Many people who've had injuries to their eyes, or even people born...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many herbal remedies and nutritional supplements can damage the eyes, including some alternative therapies that are used by people trying to correct eye problems, new research reports. According to a review of reported cases and medical literature, commonly used supplements including chamomile, ginkgo biloba, licorice, vitamin A and echinacea can cause a myriad of eye problems. Study author Dr. Frederick Fraunfelder explained that supplements become dangerous to the eyes when people take them in large doses. They can cause problems including severe conjunctivitis, eye irritation, retinal bleeding and temporary loss of vision, the study found....

WASHINGTON (AP) - A drug that attacks a major form of elderly blindness passed a key hurdle Friday as the government's scientific advisers decided that it poses no significant risks. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration did not vote formally whether Eyetech Pharmaceuticals' drug, Macugen, should be approved, but eye doctors on the panel said they were impressed by the research. The FDA will consider those opinions as it evaluates the product. Macugen is aimed at treating one type of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness among older Americans. The disease steals sight from the center of...

LONDON (Reuters) - Millions of aging baby-boomers could be spared the need to use reading glasses to see the small print if a new treatment developed by scientists in Australia is proven safe and effective. The technique, which involves replacing the contents of the lens in the eye with a soft polymer gel, will initially be used to improve cataract surgery in elderly patients. "But once it is shown to be safe and effective, we think that more and more younger people who are starting to need reading glasses will adopt it as well," Arthur Ho, of the University of...

This is a wonderful thing! I had cornea transplant Wednesday morning at Swedish Hospital in Seattle, Dr. Tom Gillette presiding. Known to those who have them as a "T," transplant went well, general anaesthetic has worn off to a major extent. Eyelid is somewhat swollen, requiring cold compresses, and eyeball feels like a small cat is occasionaly scratching it. But I'm functioning again and feeling very energetic. The T eye is blurry, however, and return of good vision can take from two weeks to two years. Please pray for return of good vision in my right eye soon. Yours for...

Wounded girl moves Fort Benning soldier BY S. THORNE HARPER Staff Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq -Staff Sgt. James Mattwig has seen too many children wounded by war, but there was one little girl he couldn't shake from his mind, and he couldn't sleep Saturday night.Mattwig, 31, a D-Troop scout with the 3rd Infantry's 3rd Brigade from Fort Benning, had escorted civil affairs officers earlier that day to conduct war-damage assessments inside Baghdad.That's when he saw 3-year-old Aya.She could see him with only her right eye; an oversized patch covered her other one. Her parents explained that an artillery round about two...

NEW YORK (CP) - A Canadian man who lost his sight in an accident nearly 20 years ago is one of a select group of people to have some vision restored by having electronic artificial eyes implanted in their brains. "You actually have a fifth sense restored. And that is what I absolutely adore about this device," the man, who wished only to be identified by his first name, Jens, said at a conference where early results from the work were revealed. "You are no longer blind. You might be blind to some objects, some situations, but you are not...