Free Republic

Currently there are no treatments for Advanced Dry AMD, also known as GA, which can lead to significant central vision loss.The National Eye Institute (NEI), one of the federally funded National Institutes of Health, is launching the first clinical trial in the US for induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), stem cells that are derived from mature human cells. The iPSC in the landmark study are being derived from the patient’s own blood and developed into retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells for the treatment of geographic atrophy (GA), the advanced form of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which causes progressive central...

Clinician scientists from Bristol Medical School and the Bristol Eye Hospital examined the case of a teenage patient who first visited his GP complaining of tiredness. The link between his nutritional status and vision was not picked up until much later, and by then, his visual impairment had become permanent.

A teen in the UK who has eaten nothing but french fries, potato chips and white bread since elementary school is now blind because of vitamin deficiencies and malnutrition damage. The boy was taken to his doctor at 14 because he felt tired. He was diagnosed with macrocytic anemia and a vitamin B12 deficiency and prescribed supplements, according to a study published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. He neither stuck with the vitamins nor changed his diet, however, and his condition worsened.Three years later, he was taken to the Bristol Eye Hospital with reported vision loss.According to the...

When it comes to regeneration, some animals are capable of amazing feats. If you cut off a salamander’s leg, it will grow back. When threatened, some geckos drop their tails to distract their predator, only to regrow them later. Other animals take the process even further. Planarian worms, jellyfish, and sea anemones can actually regenerate their bodies after being cut in half. Led by Assistant Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Mansi Srivastava, a team of researchers is shedding new light on how animals pull off the feat, along the way uncovering a number of DNA switches that appear to...

Back at the start of the year, an unexpected controversy arose regarding the London Marathon’s rules and regulations for guide runners who support visually-impaired participants in the race. For years, London’s official policy said guide runners could not receive a medal, despite having traversed the 26.2 miles with their partner like every other finisher. (In reality, volunteers at the finish line handed everyone a medal who wanted one, and a London Marathon official told Runner’s World UK they didn’t enforce the rule. But many were upset at the principle of the stance.) Runner’s World UK and other media outlets sourced...

Donald Trump Ordered Illegal Removal of Braille Because ‘No Blind People are Going to Live in Trump Tower’: Report By Jessica Kwong On 9/12/18 at 2:38 PM President Donald Trump allegedly ordered an architect not to include braille in Trump Tower elevator panels because “no blind people” would live in his building—even after being informed that excluding the tactile writing system is against federal law. The alleged interaction was recounted by Barbara Res, who led construction at the Trump Organization, in an opinion piece in the New York Daily News on Wednesday. "What’s this?” Trump, noticing the small raised dots,...

Our cell phones are practically connected to us. Now, scientists at the University of Toledo say the blue light that comes from electronics is doing permanent damage to our vision. A dark room at the University of Toledo is where researchers have found blue light, specifically, leads to macular degeneration.

* Spark Therapeutics' Luxturna will cost $850,000 for a one-time treatment. * The gene therapy treats a rare, inherited retinal disease that can lead to blindness. * Spark also unveiled a set of payment and access programs, including tying payments to how well the therapy works and exploring payment by installment. The treatment is delivered just once, a facet of gene therapy that poses unique pricing questions in an industry fueled by steady payments for chronic therapies. "It's wildly expensive but, to be very frank, I think they've priced it what I'll call responsibly," said Dr. Steve Miller, chief medical...

The leech man: Lawyer hopes nightly blood-sucking treatment will help return his sight after his 'schizophrenic son blinded him'A lawyer is hoping that a nightly blood-sucking leech treatment will help return his eyesight after his schizophrenic son allegedly blinded him in a blitz attack. John Dunlap, 80, is placing his trust in an experimental treatment that requires him to attach several leeches around his eyes so that one day he might see again. The lawyer from Memphis started the bizarre therapy after his bipolar and schizophrenic son Andrew, 41, allegedly attacked Dunlap and blinded him in 2015. With the help...

Scientists are on the brink of restoring sight to the blind by sending moving images directly to the brain. In a world-first, surgeons have implanted a visual stimulator chip in the brain of a 30-year-old woman. The patient, who has been totally blind for seven years, saw coloured flashes, lines and spots when signals were sent to her brain from a computer. Her doctors are now planning to send footage from a tiny video camera to the brain, which could provide the world’s first bionic eye and restore sight to millions. The technology bypasses the eyes, meaning it has the...

(Note: When pasting this document into FreeRepublic, it seems that most of the special formatting is lost, such as bold, italics, underlined words and embedded links. To read the document with the formatting and embedded links go to the link of the document.) Forbidden To Speak About Sin On September 14, 2016, at the monthly formation of the clergy of the diocese of Perugia, my cardinal said: “I would like to say something that I forgot to tell you, but I feel it is important. Because I myself had to reflect a lot on this to convince myself. When you...

A BRITISH pensioner has become the first person to undergo revolutionary eye surgery aimed at curing blindness in millions of people. The 60-year-old woman, who had severely impaired sight and was in danger of going blind, is said to have had no complications so far following the three-hour operation last month. The surgical team hopes to determine how successful the treatment was by early December. The woman has asked to remain anonymous. The scientists behind the pioneering procedure hope it will dramatically transform lives, allowing the blind to recognise faces of loved ones again and regain the ability to carry...

An algae found commonly in ponds could provide a cure for blindness, according to one US biotechnology company. Retrosense, a Michigan-based firm, hopes to transplant a light-sensitive protein from a specific type of algae into the eyes of blind people, to restore their sight. The company will soon begin human clinical trials, after the transplanting process was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration last month, WIRED reports. The algae, called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, is a simple single-cell organism that lives in dirt and water. It cannot see, but has a primitive “eye-spot”, allowing it to sense where the sun...

Ulster University scientists have made a remarkable breakthrough which it is hoped could cure hereditary blindness. They have discovered a treatment that can target the gene that leads to corneal dystrophy—a condition that causes cloudy deposits on the cornea. […] Currently, those with corneal dystrophy face a lifetime of treatment and the only option for those who go blind is a corneal transplant from a donor eye, but this has risks and varying success rates. […] But the new treatment, developed by scientists at the University’s School of Biomedical Science, currently involves just one injection into the eye, which destroys...

A person may not have to "see color" to be racist. Some blind people, just like sighted people, make judgments about others based on their race, according to a new study. The findings come from interviews conducted in person and over the phone with 25 people who were either born blind or severely visually impaired, or who lost their sight as children or adults. A researcher asked the participants, most of whom lived in the northeast United States, about whether they thought about race and also how it affected their feelings about a person. The study found that blind people...

In February 1758 the 90-year-old Charles Lullin, a retired Swiss civil servant whose sight had been progressively failing since a cataract operation five years before, began to see considerably more than he had become accustomed to. For the next several months he was visited in his apartment by a silent procession of figures, invisible to everyone but him: young men in magnificent cloaks, perfectly coiffured ladies carrying boxes on their heads, girls dancing in silks and ribbons. These visions were recorded and published in 1760 by his grandson, the naturalist Charles Bonnet, after whom the syndrome of hallucinations in the...

Roseanne Barr has revealed that she is slowly going blind. The comedic actress said smoking marijuana is "good medicine" for relieving the pressure in her eyes. "It's something weird. But there are other weird things. That one's harsh, 'cause I read a lot, and then I thought, 'Well, I guess I could hire somebody to read for me and read to me.' But I like words and I like looking. You do what you have to do. I just try and enjoy vision as much as possible -- y'know, living it up. Barr also defended her use of pot, saying,...

Boston researchers have successfully regrown human corneal tissue—a feat that could potentially restore vision in the blind. The achievement also marks one of the first times that scientists have constructed tissue using adult-derived human stem cells. In a new study published in the journal Nature, researchers from Massachusetts Eye and Ear Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the VA Boston Healthcare System detailed their groundbreaking research. According to the paper, the key to the study’s success revolves around a molecule known as ABCB5, which serves as a biomarker for previously elusive limbal stem cells. Residing in the...

In today’s Gospel, Jesus, the Light of the World, brings light to a man born blind. If you are prepared to accept it, you are the man born blind, for all of us were born blind and in darkness. It was our baptism alone, and the faith it gave, which has rendered us able to see, and, by stages, to come more fully into the light. The man in today’s Gospel shows forth the stages of the Christian walk, out of darkness, and into the beautiful light of Christ. Let’s take a moment and observe these stages evident in this...

If your New Year’s resolution is to change your light bulbs, don’t worry—the federal government’s here to help. Beginning January 1, 2014, the federal government will ban the use of 60-watt and 40-watt incandescent light bulbs. The light bulb has become a symbol in the fight for consumer freedom and against unnecessary governmental interference into the lives of the American people. 2007, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law an energy bill that placed stringent efficiency requirements on ordinary incandescent bulbs in an attempt to have them completely eliminated by 2014. The law phased out 100-watt and...