FDA panel recommends against 'bionic eye'

Associated Press, via Yahoo ^ | Fri Jul 14, 8:29 PM ET | ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

[jmcenanly]

WASHINGTON - In the 1970s TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man," the strapping young astronaut got a bionic eye. A U.S. company had hoped that next year that might be your grandmother. Not so fast, a federal advisory panel said Friday.

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A tiny telescope designed to be implanted in the eyes of some elderly patients should not receive Food and Drug Administration approval, the panel recommended on a 10-3 vote.

The FDA's ophthalmic devices panel recommended against the pea-sized bionic device for safety reasons, spokeswoman Heidi Valetkevitch said.

The first-of-its-kind device is called the Implantable Miniature Telescope. The telephoto lens could enable some patients to do away with the special glasses and handheld telescopes they now use to compensate for the loss in central vision caused by age-related macular degeneration, according to VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies Inc., its manufacturer.

[jmcenanly]

For further information you can visit http://www.fda.gov/ for the FDA and http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_sc/storytext/bionic_eye/19665889/SIG=10v91g231/*http://www.visioncareinc.net/ for VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies Inc I can also imagine some of the problems, like the eysestrain of having two different magnifications in each eye, and the noise problem http://espn.go.com/media/otl/2000/0114/audio/bioniceye.wav

[spall]

[jwalburg]

[jmcenanly]

Inventions for this problem go back a long way.

Benjamin Franklin's bifocal lenses were an early solution to the same problem

[mak5]

Risk or not, the improvement stats are impressive. My late father tried various laser treatments for his AMD without results and as a result, was housebound with his car sitting unused, for the last year and a half of his life. This device would have given him a much better quality of life at the end.

[mikrofon]

In the 1970s TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man," the strapping young astronaut got a bionic eye. A U.S. company had hoped that next year that might be your grandmother.

Probably not -- Grandma's afraid of heights.