Free Eye Exams for the World's Poor
Topic: Eye Care
"Around the world, half a billion people live with uncorrected vision problems, according to World Health Organization estimates, in part because eye specialists are rare in the developing world," according to a story on the Boston Globe's website Boston.com. "But a team at the MIT Media Lab believes it can help restore sharp eyesight to many of these people, with a vision test that uses cellphones, an inexpensive clip-on eyepiece, and free software."

Winning the Battle--Slowly--Against River Blindness with Merck's Support
Topic: Eye Care
"Public health officials at the 20th Inter-American Conference on Onchocerciasis in Antigua, Guatemala, confirmed that more than one-third of all Latin Americans who ran the risk of contracting river blindness (onchocerciasis), a leading cause of preventable blindness, are no longer at risk," reports MedicalNewsToday. "Officials attribute the successes in Latin America to a ...partnership led by the Carter Center...The Carter Center - through its sponsorship of the Onchocerciasis Elimination Program of the Americas (OEPA) - assists national ministries of health in six affected countries in Latin America to conduct health education and distribute Merck's medicine, ivermectin (registered trademark Mectizan)...'Merck has donated Mectizan for more than 20 years and will continue to do so until river blindness becomes a disease of the past,' said Richard T. Clark, chairman and CEO of Merck."

Rewiring the Brain to See Patterns
Topic: Optical
"A team of researchers from the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts and College of Science and Engineering have found that an early part of the brain's visual system rewires itself when people are trained to perceive patterns, and have shown for the first time that this neural learning appears to be independent of higher order conscious visual processing," according to a post on MedicalNewsToday. 

"Seeing" Like a Fruit Fly?
Topic: Optical
We all know that an image is projected on the retina. Then what? Nerves cells separate the image into different channels, and "this pre-sorted information is then transmitted to the brain as parallel image sequences," notes MedicalNewsToday. "Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried have now discovered that fruit flies process optical information in a similar way. The evidence suggests that this type of wiring is an effective energy-saving mechanism and is therefore deployed by a diverse range of animal species. (Nature, November 11, 2010)"

Deaf or Blind See Better

MedicalNewsToday posted the following: "Adults born deaf react more quickly to objects at the edge of their visual field than hearing people, according to groundbreaking new research by the University of Sheffield. The study, which was funded by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), has, for the first time ever, seen scientists test how peripheral vision develops in deaf people from childhood to adulthood."

On a post from the same website earlier, there was this: "People who are blind from birth are able to detect tactile information faster than people with normal vision, according to a study in the Oct. 27 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The brain requires a fraction of a second to register a sight, sound, or touch. In this study, a group of researchers led by Daniel Goldreich, PhD, of McMaster University explored whether people who have a special reliance on a particular sense - in the way blind people rely on touch - would process that sense faster."

Teenager Going Door-to-Door Seeking Money for Eye Treatment
Topic: Eye Care
"Christopher Gipp has been knocking on strangers’ doors asking for help to pay for a procedure OHIP won't cover. Gipp, who suffered a stroke seven months ago, is hoping to have his sight restored — somewhat, at least — through hyperbaric oxygen therapy," according to HamiltonMountainNews.

Facebook Isn't Making Visitors Blind
Topic: Eye Care
Two days ago, Facebook shrank the font size of news feeds on people's home pages. Then the complaints flew, some claiming the onset of blindness. CNET reported that "If your eyes are hurting from the text on Facebook's home page, they were probably already subject to eye strain--the term for the discomfort, dryness, redness, and other unpleasant symptoms that can result from focusing on a computer screen or other object for too long--long before you loaded up the social network to check up on your FrontierVille homestead or to remove some unflattering photo tags. Eye care professionals say the smaller font size is unlikely to affect users' vision or eye health any more than its larger-type brethren. Eye strain, too, is temporary and very preventable." By the way CNET is not affliiated with Facebook.

Volunteers Provide Care for 12,000
Topic: Eye Care

An international team of volunteer eye care professionals has reached more than 12,000 underprivileged people in the latest OneSight Foundation mission to a poor township, just outside of the South African city of Pretoria, goes the post on MiVision.

Optical Sec Gets Two in the Slammer
Topic: Optical--Sort Of
OpticianOnline reports that "an optician's secretary who stole more than £170,000 over five and a half years was sentenced to two years imprisonment in Nottingham Crown Court."

Eye Clinic Gets Millions from a Reader
Topic: Eye Care
"Clemence “Keme” Williams, never one to mince words, has strong feelings about the Storm Eye Institute at the Medical University of South Carolina," goes the post on GreenvilleOnline. "'The Storm Eye Clinic saved my life,' says Williams, who was in such excruciating pain in 1998 that she says she 'would have committed suicide' had the Storm Eye Institute not solved a serious problem in both eyes.Williams, 85, has shown her appreciation by planning a gift of more than $1 million to the institute. Already a member of the Millennium Society of MUSC, Williams has established a fund that will donate the proceeds of her and her deceased sister’s estate, valued at more than $1 million, to the Storm Institute."

10K New Customers in a Day
Topic: Eyewear
That's the claim of Canada's Coastal Contacts. "Coastal Contacts Inc., the leading online retailer of contact lenses and prescription eyeglasses, today provided an eyeglasses update that during a single twelve hour period in October, 2010 Coastal generated orders for more than ten thousand pairs of eyeglasses from new customers," says a report from YahooFinance.

Girls Who Wear Glasses May Not Get Passes but They Get Rewards
Topic: Eyewear

"Get Sighted" Goes National
Topic: Eye Care
Bringing Transitions Optical's "Get Sighted" initiative to a national level, actor Erik Estrada of the famed 1970's TV show "CHiPs," along with optometrist Larry Lampert, is raising awareness about the importance of healthy sight among consumers across the country.  Over the past few months, Estrada, as a Healthy Sight Officer, has already led the Healthy Sight Patrol through the streets of New York City and at the Transitions Championship in the Tampa Bay area to distribute "Sight-Ations" for violations such as "Visual Abandonment" and "Indecent Exposure" to consumers who were not wearing proper UV-blocking eyewear while outdoors.  Now, Estrada has teamed up with Dr. Larry Lampert to educate consumers nationwide about year-round eye health. That's a post from the PRNewsWire.

Bionic Eye Gives Sight to the Blind
Topic: Eye Care
A 46-year-old man thought he would never see again after a devastating eye disease robbed him of his sight," according to the DailyMail.

Saginaw ECP Gets $25,000 Grant
Topic: Eye Care
The Saginaw Area Foundation for Eye Care was one of four Saginaw health care providers to receive $15,000 grants from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Teh grants are a part of the insurer's Strengthening the Safety Net program. That's the report from mLive.

VA Caused Blindness in 87-Year-Old Vet
Topic: Eye Care
"The federal government has agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by an 87-year-old veteran who alleged that he became legally blind as a result of negligent medical treatment at the Palo Alto veterans hospital," reports the MercuryNews. "The investigation revealed the hospital's optometrists had not followed an internal policy that required all patients with glaucoma to have their treatment overseen and reviewed by an ophthalmologist, a medical doctor that specializes in eye care."

Your Customers Might Have Read about the New Hypnotic CLs
Topic: Optical--Sort Of

SpoofTimes has posted the following:

A new technology is in testing right now, Hypnotic Contact Lenses. This is a new and clear contact lenses have nano technology on it that will have the the wearer to hypnotize the person who's looking directly the wearers eyes.

The lens operates as with the thought of the wearer as he dazzled the victims with the wearers eyes. The lens will make the victim look to the wearers eyes and gives off small instances making the wearers eyes in a white color. The hypnotist will then give a verbal command to the victim and the victim suppose to obligate the wearers command.

 

UK Spending Too Much on Eye Care
Topic: Eye Care
"Its on-the-ground research...shows that public sector organisations could be collectively overspending up to £127 million (£1 equals about $1.60) on obligatory eyecare for their staff," says an article posted on PersonnelToday. The British opticians group, Specsavers, "has discovered that poor procurement decisions are resulting in public sector organisations typically spending between £50 and £80 per employee, and some as much as £200. This service can in fact be provided for as little as £17 per employee.  With virtually all jobs now entailing some use of visual display units, multiplied by the 6.051million people employed in the public sector, this could result in a massive overspend in the region of £127million." It's a wonder if the American public sector could learn from this study.

Health Care Providers Need Eye Exams to Avoid Car Accidents?
Topic: Contact Lenses
Acording to a press release from Confusion.com, health care professionals file the most car insurance claims: "GPs make more car insurance claims than any other profession, a new survey has suggested. Some 33% of GPs registered with the price comparison website confused.com claimed in the past year, according to its own research.They were closely followed by others in the medical profession, including psychologists (30%), district nurses (30%), hospital doctors (29%) and dentists (27%).Even 27% of opticians  [our emphasis] claimed for an incident in the last 12 months, followed by 26% of police officers."

Darts Champion Need Glasses
Topic: Eye Care

In the U.S., people shot darts in bars until they are half in the bag. In the U.K., it's a sport--a professional sport worth hundreds of thousands to winners. That explains why the following story was front page news for the Sun.

Phil Taylor [champion darts player] has been told that he needs glasses.

Opticians say the sharpest eye in darts should wear specs on the oche, starting at next week's Grand Slam.

It comes on the back of The Power's worst run of form in almost three years - with three defeats in a fortnight.

Taylor, 50, said: "Maybe that explains why I'm suddenly losing matches - it's because I can't see the board.

"As long as I don't look like Ugly Betty I don't care."