StemCell Therapy

Went in for eye surgery the other day, which reminded me of an old wheeze of a joke, which I told to people as they prepared the prisoner for execution: A man walked by the insane asylum and heard the inmates shouting, Twenty-one! Twenty-one! They sounded ecstatic and he stopped to have a look. He put his eye to a hole in the fence and they poked him in the eye with a sharp stick and yelled, Twenty-two! Twenty-two!

The sedation guy was busy and didnt laugh but the nurse did. She was an angel and how often do you get to meet one? She grew up on a farm in southwestern Minnesota, is the mother of two teenagers and a professional possessed of warmth and humor. She did the prep, slipped the IV in, ran through a battery of questions, and patted me on the shoulder about 27 times in the course of an hour. A lifelong reader/writer like me blanches at the thought of his eye being sliced while he observes up close. This womans ease and kindness changed everything. Every thing.

Of course the outcome depends on the ophthalmic surgeon, who is also a kind and caring woman, but by then I was sedated, mesmerized by bright lights. The procedure lasted an hour, and when I was back on my feet, a patch over the eye, woozy but ambulatory, I walked out into bright sunlight and into the world of the handicapped. It was not easy to figure out when to cross the street to my hotel. In the hotel hallway, I had to read room numbers up close, hoping nobody would suddenly open a door and find a tall man with an eyepatch peering at their peephole and call the police.

Back in the room, I hung up my jacket, opened my laptop and I couldnt see the keys that would increase font size to where I could read the text. I lay on the bed and contemplated the prospect of life as a man in a blur. I dozed. I turned on the TV. I couldnt watch it, only listen. I clicked around, hoping for a friendly voice, and everyone sounded hyped-up and weird, canned laughter, big carnival barker voices, big woofers and screaming meemies, and then I found a ballgame. Two men, talking nice and slow in level tones, describing actions taking place before their eyes. Players I didnt know playing games I didnt care about, but those were the voices of my uncles discussing cars, gardens, future construction projects, the secret of pouring concrete, and that was reassuring, to know that the country has not come unhinged.

Kindness and blindness, all in one day. Back to basics. I think kindness does not come naturally to men. We bark, we harrumph, but tenderness is a stretch for us. The grief-stricken mother lies in bed, keening, and her women friends take turns stroking her back, while the men sit stiffly in the next room, trying to make conversation.

Its a small thing, kindness, but when youre in the hands of a large institution with a bar code for identification, kindness feels like the key to civilization itself and the fulfillment of the word of the Lord. And the combination of kindness and the high-powered intellectual acuity of modern medical science is a miracle of our time. America is the land of second chances and thats what modern medicine has brought us.

I lay in the hotel room hearing my uncles discuss the price of feed corn and it occurred to me, not once but several times, that I am a fortunate man and thank you, Lord. Medicare A and B and a good group health policy and savings to cover any shortfall. The 23 million people who may lose their health insurance in the next few years if Congress does as the man wishes will face some high barriers between them and any sort of eye surgery. This does not come under the heading of Kindness.

Eighty percent of evangelical Christians who cast ballots last fall voted for the man, who seems as far from Christian virtues (humility, kindness, patience, etc.) as Hulk Hogan is from the Dalai Lama. These are people who pray for guidance. So apparently Jesus got the story wrong. The rich man came to Lazarus who was covered with sores and asked for a tax break and the rich man was rewarded and Lazarus went to hell. Do unto others as you are glad they dont have the means to do unto you.

Garrison Keillor is an author and radio personality.

2017, Garrison Keillor

Distributed by The Washington Post News Service with Bloomberg News.

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Garrison Keillor column: Blindness and kindness, all in one day ... - Richmond.com

NightstaRx has raised 39.5M that will go towards three clinical programs testing gene therapies for rare diseases that cause blindness.

NightstaRx is developing gene therapies for genetic retinal diseases that cause blindness, with technology from the University of Oxford. Now getting closer to the clinic, the company has closed a Series C round with$45M (39.5M) that will go towards progressing its pipeline.The fundraising was backed by existing investors Syncona, the VC arm of the UKs Wellcome Trust, and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), which were joined by two new names: Wellington Management and Redmile.

NightstaRx has announced the money will fund an upcoming Phase III trial with its lead candidate NSR-REP1 in choroideremia, an ongoing Phase I/II study in X-linked retinitis pigmentosa and a planned Phase I/II program for inherited macular dystrophy.All indications pursued by the company have no effective treatment approved.

The biotechs technology is based adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors that deliver functional genes to patients with mutations that affect their sight. The DNA is delivered via an injection under the retina as a one-time treatment.

NightstaRx lead candidate, NSR-REP1, delivers a copy of the REP-1 gene, which encodes a protein involved in absorbing nutrients. Mutations in this gene, located in the X chromosome, cause choroideremia, a rare disease in which the retina degenerates slowly over the years, eventually leaving patients blind.A previous Phase I/II trial with NSR-REP1 in six patients with choroideremia where only one eye was treated showed significant improvementin their vision three and a half years after receiving the therapy.

Gene therapy is particularly suited to treat the eye, where it can sustain long-lasting gene expression without inducing an immune response, which has led many companies to develop their own approaches for multiple diseases affecting this organ. One of the most advanced is Spark Therapeutics, in the US, which expects FDA approval for its lead candidate in retinal disease this year. A second candidate, SPK-7001, is in Phase I/II for choroidemia, where it might have to compete with NightstaRx.

In Europe, most efforts are found in France. From there, GenSight is running two Phase III trialsin the rare genetic disease LHON;Horama is in Phase I/II in another rare condition, LCA; and Eyevensys will soon start a first trial in uveitis with the first gene therapy that does not use viral vectors.

Images via GeK / Shutterstock; NightstaRx

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40M in Series C for a British Biotech Treating Blindness with Gene Therapy - Labiotech.eu (blog)

NightstaRx has raised 39.5M that will go towards three clinical programs testing gene therapies for rare diseases that cause blindness.

NightstaRx is developing gene therapies for genetic retinal diseases that cause blindness, with technology from the University of Oxford. Now getting closer to the clinic, the company has closed a Series C round with$45M (39.5M) that will go towards progressing its pipeline.The fundraising was backed by existing investors Syncona, the VC arm of the UKs Wellcome Trust, and New Enterprise Associates (NEA), which were joined by two new names: Wellington Management and Redmile.

NightstaRx has announced the money will fund an upcoming Phase III trial with its lead candidate NSR-REP1 in choroideremia, an ongoing Phase I/II study in X-linked retinitis pigmentosa and a planned Phase I/II program for inherited macular dystrophy.All indications pursued by the company have no effective treatment approved.

The biotechs technology is based adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors that deliver functional genes to patients with mutations that affect their sight. The DNA is delivered via an injection under the retina as a one-time treatment.

NightstaRx lead candidate, NSR-REP1, delivers a copy of the REP-1 gene, which encodes a protein involved in absorbing nutrients. Mutations in this gene, located in the X chromosome, cause choroideremia, a rare disease in which the retina degenerates slowly over the years, eventually leaving patients blind.A previous Phase I/II trial with NSR-REP1 in six patients with choroideremia where only one eye was treated showed significant improvementin their vision three and a half years after receiving the therapy.

Gene therapy is particularly suited to treat the eye, where it can sustain long-lasting gene expression without inducing an immune response, which has led many companies to develop their own approaches for multiple diseases affecting this organ. One of the most advanced is Spark Therapeutics, in the US, which expects FDA approval for its lead candidate in retinal disease this year. A second candidate, SPK-7001, is in Phase I/II for choroidemia, where it might have to compete with NightstaRx.

In Europe, most efforts are found in France. From there, GenSight is running two Phase III trialsin the rare genetic disease LHON;Horama is in Phase I/II in another rare condition, LCA; and Eyevensys will soon start a first trial in uveitis with the first gene therapy that does not use viral vectors.

Images via GeK / Shutterstock; NightstaRx

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40M in Series C for NightstaRx to Treat Blindness with Gene Therapy - Labiotech.eu (blog)

"One of the biggest obstacles is our own perceptions of our capabilities, and part of the Lighthouse's mission is to change perceptions of the abilities of the blind in all fields." Bryan Bashin, CEO, The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Instead, Ojok Simon wants them to know about a way they can earn money without leaving home: beekeeping. Simon, 36, became visually impaired after he was severely beaten by rebels who came to his village when he was a child. He has been a beekeeper for 15 years, and in 2013 he co-founded Hive Uganda, an organization that teaches advocates for visually impaired people and teaches them to make a living raising honeybees.

This year, his organization will receive a boost: Simon is one of three winners of the first-ever Holman Prize, started by The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Francisco.

"It's like a blind Fulbright," said Will Butler, the organization's communication director, of the award, which gives up to $25,000 apiece to blind and visually impaired people seeking funding for ambitious personal projects.

The prize is named for James Holman, a 19th-century English navy lieutenant who lost his sight at 25. In those days, if a military man became blind, "the usual thing was they'd go sit in a convent or church and pray for the souls of dead English soldiers and sailors," said Bryan Bashin, The Lighthouse's CEO.

Holman didn't think that sounded like fun. So, "at a time with people didn't even think that blind people could get out of the house, he began to travel, and he became the most traveled blind person of the 19th century," eventually crossing through Scotland and France, and across Siberia, Bashin said.

Along the way she will videotape her encounters and blog about her journey. Her goal, she said, is "to show that blind people and other disabled people have got lots of get up and go and ability, and they are a great resource for the rest of the community, the rest of society, and particularly employers, to use better."

Melville-Brown was thrilled to learn she had won ("My thinking is it's a cross between the Paralympics and The Apprentice, with a whiff of the Nobel!" she wrote to the organizers in an excited email). But she also said the honor comes with "a great responsibility. Because I am sort of representing lots of blind people, and especially those who were candidates for the prize. I'm sort of doing it on their behalf."

Two-hundred and two applicants from 27 countries and 35 U.S. states submitted 90-second video pitches for their projects.

"We were staggered by the amount of interest and the quality and diversity of the proposals," Bashin said. "One of the biggest obstacles is our own perceptions of our capabilities, and part of the Lighthouse's mission is to change perceptions of the abilities of the blind in all fields."

Winners will be flown to San Francisco and work with the project manager to refine their ideas. A year later, they will return to report on how they turned out.

In the Gulu district of northern Uganda, Simon's organization has already taught 38 people to be beekeepers, using local materials to make beehives and learning how to understand bees' behavior.

Ugandans prize the insects for their honey, their wax (used in soap and cosmetics), their propolis, and even their venom, which can be used to boost immunity. But much of the harvesting is done in the wild, which presents a challenge for the visually impaired. Hive Uganda teaches people to use frames and assess the honey harvest by feeling how heavy they are.

Winning the Holman will allow Simon to widen the scope of how many people he can help.

"I feel that now I'm going to be addressing the larger society ... to empower East Africa in general," he told the Washington Post. "My dream is becoming reality, and that change that I wanted, I started feeling at my fingertips."

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Blindness does not stop this beekeeper, baker, and kayaker from expanding their vision - The Guam Daily Post

If this year follows the past, there will be many preventable eye injuries and cases of blindness.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and all ophthalmologists, are urging people to attend public fireworks displays put on by professionals rather than attempt to ignite their own fireworks. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, more than 9,000 fireworks-related injuries are reported in emergency rooms each year. Of these, nearly 50 percent are head-related injuries and almost 30 percent of these are eye injuries. Twenty-five percent of fireworks-related eye injuries result in permanent vision loss or blindness. In addition, there will be injuries to hands, faces and other parts of the body.

The typical injured person is young: Children 15 years or younger account for 50 percent of all fireworks eye injuries in the United States, and one-third of all fireworks injuries in children younger than 5 are the result of sparklers, which can burn at nearly 2,000 degrees.

The AAO offers the following safety tips:

As parents and adults, we have an obligation to prevent much needless blindness or lessor eye damage by simply alerting young people and ALL adults as to the dangers of fireworks.

FRANK J. WEINSTOCK, MD, CANTON

Professor of Ophthalmology,

Northeast Ohio Medical University

Fellow of the American College of Surgeons

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Letter to the Editor: You can prevent blindness - The Repository - Canton Repository

Somewhere in an album at Mum's place there's a photo of me kneeling in front of George Pell as I'm confirmed an adult in the Catholic Church.

It was taken in 1994, when I was 11 years old.Pell was the local regional bishop, based in Mentone.I remember him speaking to the class beforehand about footy and the Richmond Tigers, about which I knew and cared little.

My real interests were in history and politics.The intersection of those topics with religion is what continued to fascinate me well into adulthood, even as my Mass-going waned.

I was fascinated by stories of the ALP Split, of Bob Santamaria and the Movement (some of whose principal figures lined up in the same parish each week to take communion).

I ended up writing a PhD thesis on a voluntary association of clergy known as the National Council of Priests, which sprang up in Australia in the aftermath of Vatican II and associated events such as the moratorium movement.The NCP is a moderately conservative group of men and it comprises about half of all the Catholic priests in Australia, including bishops.

It's had two principal aims during its nearly 50 years of existence: first, to unite the clergy during a period of rapid change and, second, to Australianise Catholicism to make it a religion of this land and its people, more so than a Roman branch office or, in Patrick White's words, an Ireland of the South Pacific.

Borrowing from CJ Dennis, I called that thesis The Sacramental Bloke.

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In researching the story of the NCP, it became evident that there were strong subterranean movements taking place within the church during the 1970s, eighties and nineties.

At one level, this coincided with broader changes in Australia that included women's liberation, gay lib, state aid for Catholic schools, no-fault divorce, decriminalised abortion, legislation for women's equal pay, the AIDS crisis and so on.

Pell is part of a movement within the church that views some of these developments as expressions of "modernism", which it regards with extreme suspicion.

That faction within the church has its roots in the 1940s and fifties, when Australia was in the midst of the Cold War and the great fight that was taking place in domestic politics was between Communists and anti-Communists for control of the ALP.

Such was the acrimony created by this movement that the Vatican intervened to sort out the situation in 1957, declaring that the church had no place in officially involving itself in electoral politics.

But significantly for this story, that movement never went away.

It just went underground, transmuting itself through various guises such as the National Civic Council, the Australian Family Association and the opinion pages of The Daily Telegraph.

For Catholics within those groups, and those who supported them, such as George Pell, the great test to be applied to any co-religionist during the 1980s and 1990s was fidelity to Rome.

At a time during which non-traditional practices of sex and gender had become visible and their supporters loud, the test for theological conservatives within the church was about how strongly one supported and promoted the Roman line: no to contraceptives in marriage, no to homosexuals in the priesthood and no to married clergy or women priests.

The great irony here is that facilitating a wider discussion of human sexuality in all its forms would have allowed for homosexuals and celibates (including priests) to raise their voices and to be seen as leading legitimate lives of their own choosing.

Instead, just as the first clerics were being charged with sexual abuse offences, Melbourne Catholics were dished up documents by Pell such as "Why Can't Catholic Women be Priests?" (1993).

At the time, a sympathetic bishop advised members of the NCP to refrain from responding to Pell's publication "as Bishop Pell does have a certain following".

In seemingly keeping a lid on any real discussion of sexuality in the church, it became easy for those of a traditionalist bent to associatehomosexuality with paedophilia, just as the rest of society started to associated celibacy with sexual abuse.

The net effect was to make all clergy seem aberrant and potentially dangerous.

There is a real danger here that if we remain ignorant of the way that Pell and his supporters responded to broader changes in church and society, we can become too smug about the position he now finds himself in.

We can continue to buy into the cheap notion that the church is some sort of evil institution staffed by a quackish bunch of freaks and weirdos.

Or we can start to have an open discussion about sexuality, gender and the abuses that humans continue to perpetrate on one another well beyond institutional settings.

We owe that to the many victims out there who do not have a royal commission on their side, whose attackers are going about their business as respectable citizens today, safe in the knowledge that they will probably never be brought to justice.

Dr Damien Williams is an adjunct research fellow at the Centre for Religious Studies at Monash University.

Originally posted here:
Denialism and blindness en masse - The Sydney Morning Herald

In rural Uganda, people who are blind or visually impaired often go to the city to look for work. But jobs are hard to find, and many end up as street beggars.

Instead, Ojok Simon wants them to know about a way they can earn money without leaving home: beekeeping. Simon, 36, became visually impaired after he was severely beaten by rebels who came to his village when he was a child. He has been a beekeeper for 15 years, and in 2013 he co-founded Hive Uganda, an organization that educates advocates for visually impaired people and teaches the sightless to make a living raising honeybees.

Ojok Simon, a beekeeper, co-founded Hive Uganda, an organization that teaches visually impaired people how to make a living raising honeybees. (The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired)

This year, his organization will receive a boost: Simon is one of three winners of the first Holman Prize, given by the San Francisco nonprofit Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. There were 202 applicants from 27 countries and 35 U.S. states who submitted 90-second video pitches for their projects.

Its like a blind Fulbright, Will Butler,the organizations communication director, said of theaward. The honor grantsup to $25,000each toblind and visually impaired people seeking funding for ambitious personal projects.

The prize is named for James Holman, a 19th-century Britishnavy lieutenant who lost his sight at age 25. In those days, if a military man became blind, the usual thing was theyd go sit in a convent or church and pray for the souls of dead English soldiers and sailors, said Bryan Bashin, the Lighthouses chief executive.Holman didnt think that sounded like fun. So, at a time when people didnt even think that blind people could get out of the house, he began to travel, and he became the most traveled blind person of the 19th century, evenventuring across Siberia, Bashin said.

Another winner of this years prize,Penny Melville-Brown of Farnham, Britain, lost her sight while she was a commanderin the BritishRoyal Navy. Her project, Baking Blind, will take her around the world to cook with blind and sighted chefs including stops in China, Australia, Malawi and Virginia Beach, where she hopes to link up with some navy veterans, especially blind ones, to share stories.

Penny Melville-Brown of Farnham, U.K., will travel the world cooking with other visually impaired and sighted chefs for her "Baking Blind" project. (The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired)

Along the way she will videotape her encounters and blog abouther journey. Her goal, she said, is to show that blind people and other disabled people have got lots of get-up-and-go and ability, and they are a great resource for the rest of the community, the rest of society, and particularly employers, to use better.

Melville-Brown was thrilled to learn she had won (My thinking is its a cross between the Paralympics and The Apprentice, with a whiff of the Nobel! she wrote to the organizers in an email). But she also said the honor comes with a great responsibilitybecause I am sort of representing lots of blind people, and especially those who were candidates for the prize. Im sort of doing it on their behalf.

A third winner, Ahmet Ustunel, a San Francisco teacher and avid kayaker, plans todevelop a guidance system to kayak solo 500 miles in locations around the world, including crossing the Bosporus from Europe to Asia in his native Turkey.

Ahmet Ustunel, a San Francisco teacher and avid kayaker, will develop a guidance system to solo kayak 500 miles in different locations around the world. (The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired)

We were staggered by the amount of interest and the quality and diversity of the proposals, Bashin said. One of the biggest obstacles is our own perceptions of our capabilities, and part of the Lighthouses mission is to change perceptions of the abilities of the blind in all fields.

Winners will be flown to San Francisco and work with aproject manager to refine their ideas. A year later, they will return to report on their efforts.

In the Gulu district of northern Uganda, Simons organization has already taught 38 people how to become beekeepersby using local materials to make beehives and learning aboutbees behavior.

Ugandans prize the insects for their honey, wax (used in soap and cosmetics), propolis (a resin used to close holes in their hives) and even their venom, which can be used to boost immunity. But much of the harvesting is done in the wild, which presents a challenge for the visually impaired. Hive Uganda teaches people to use frames and assess the honey harvest by feeling how heavy they are.

Winning the Holman will allow Simon to expand the number of people he can help.

I feel that now Im going to be addressing the larger society to empower East Africa in general, he told The Washington Post. My dream is becoming reality, and that change that I wanted, I started feeling at my fingertips.

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Blindness does not stop this beekeeper, this baker and this kayaker ... - Washington Post

Dr Samuel Udoetuk, an optometrist, has advised the public to embark on regular eye check in order to prevent blindness.

Udoetuk gave the advice in an interview with newsmen on Wednesday in Gwagwalada (FCT) at the free eye screening organised by J.A Eagle Hospital.

He said that the aim of the free eye screening was to educate and eradicate blindness in the rural areas where it was found to be common.

To avoid blindness, a person should visit the hospital at least once in a year for proper eye check.

And if anything is detected, it can be treated immediately to avoid complications that might lead to blindness.

During any eye check, a lot of things will be looked out for to detect if there is any pathology in the eyes.

He listed some of the common eye diseases to include glaucoma, cataract, long and shortsightedness among others.

According to him, glaucoma is an increased pressure called intraocular pressure of the eye; it could damage the optic nerve which transmits images to the brain.

Udoetuk said that if the damage continued, glaucoma could lead to permanent vision loss, adding that without treatment, glaucoma could cause total blindness within a few years.

He said; cataract which is a clouding of the lens in the eye and which leads to decrease in vision, often developed slowly and could affect one or both eyes.

In cataract, the patient may notice some symptoms such as faded colours, blurry vision, halos around light, trouble with bright lights and trouble seeing at night.

According to him, if any of these eye diseases is noticed early, it goes a long way in preventing the possible cause of blindness.

He said the screening which would last for one week was another opportunity for residents of FCT to know their eye status.

NAN

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Embark on regular eye check to avoid blindness Optometrist advises Nigerians - TheNewsGuru

GETTY

Opticians are urging British people to beware the harmful effects of too much sun exposure on their eyes.

This is because its ultraviolet (UV) rays can cause macular damage.

The most common form is age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

It's the leading cause of sight loss in the developed world.

GETTY

While smoking, a poor diet and genetics can increase risk of macular damage, sun exposure also plays a part.

While smoking, a poor diet and genetics can increase risk, sun exposure also plays a part.

To coincide with this week's 2017 Macular Week, Specsavers are aiming to highlight the importance of protecting your eyes during sunny weather.

This is particularly important given that further heatwaves are expected this summer.

AMD occurs when a persons retinal cells die off and are not regenerated, leading to visual impairment and in some cases, blindness.

SWNS.com

1 of 40

Miss Devon, Becky Wright (17) enjoys the sunshine and hot weather at the Paignton beach in Devon. June 20, 2017

GETTY

However, its effects can be avoided.

Dr Nigel Best, Specsavers clinical spokesperson, said: "AMD affects more than 600,000 people across the UK. Its a staggering amount - especially when you consider the fact that just a few lifestyle changes can improve your chances of avoiding the condition.

"What a lot of people dont realise is that UV rays can be as harmful to your eyes as they are to your skin, therefore its crucial that people ensure they are wearing sunglasses or UV blocking contact lenses throughout the summer months to protect against the harmful exposure.

"Look for sunglasses that meet the European Safety standards, as well as at least 80% light reduction - that way you know that your exposure to UV light is significantly reduced."

GETTY

Sally Harvey, chief executive of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), said: "We know that almost half of all cases of sight loss are preventable, and this is why RNIB recommends people protect their eyes from the sun this summer by wearing their sunglasses."

Symptoms of AMD include finding reading increasingly difficult, colours less vibrant and people's faces difficult to recognise.

According to the NHS, it's predicted almost 700,000 people will have late-stage AMD in the UK by 2020.

There's no cure, but there is evidence to suggest that a diet rich in green leafy vegetables can help slow its progression.

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UK heatwave warning: Too much sun exposure can cause BLINDNESS - Express.co.uk

Ironic that on the subject of capital punishment this editorial demonstrates some of the blindness. While the penal system keeps Mr. Rodriguez on death row and attorneys currently engaged in evidentiary hearings to uncover improprieties of the 2006 trial that led to the sentencing, the writers seem to give more attention to the cost to taxpayers than to examining the inherent injustice of capital punishment.

If we acknowledge that God is the creator of all life and that God is love and never withdraws that love from the people God has created with worth and dignity, that means that Mr. Rodriguez and other "degenerates"(words from the editorial) like him continue to be loved by God.

In this case, a horrible crime was committed and many innocent people suffer today because of it, especially the families of Dru Sjodin and Mr. Rodriguez. Perpetrators must take responsibility for their actions, and in the case of homicide, accept a rigorous punishment imposed by the justice system. And in the instances of homicide by capital punishment, who holds the United States culpable?

The editorial concludes with the question: "What good comes from keeping Rodriguez alive?"

An immediate good among others, would be to see a decrease in the number of murders committed by the United States in the name of us, the citizens.

Sister Pat Murphy CSJ

Crookston

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Letter: Recent opinion shows blindness by Herald | Grand Forks ... - Grand Forks Herald

In early 2015, 33-year-old Chris Herron was declared legally blind, and was told he had an 80-percent chance of losing his sight entirely in three months. Now, hes almost fully recovered, and has launched an audiobook channel that helps scifi and fantasy authors... just like how they once helped him.

Herron is the founder of Tall Tale TV, a YouTube channel where he makes and releases audiobooks for burgeoning scifi and fantasy works. Before that, he spent almost a year wondering if he would be able to read books again after being diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy, the most common cause of blindness for working-age adults. Its where people with diabetes (Herrons had Type 1 since he was 7) suffer from leaks or bleeding behind the eyes if they dont keep their blood sugar low. He was told hed need surgery in both eyes, and he had a four in five chance of going blind.

[When I found out], I hyperventilated and they had to lay me down. It came as a major shock, I had never even considered the possibility of not being able to see, Herron told io9. I decided I was going to fight it, and I was going to come out the other side regardless what they told me the chances were.

He immediately set out to change his lifestyle losing 30 pounds in the first month from diet and any exercise he could do, which started as guided walks with his wife. He described his sight as like looking through a cloud of ink, which meant he had trouble with many basic tasks. He also lost the ability to read and didnt know how to read Braille. Given his lifelong love of fantasy and science fiction, and how they served as an emotional release during bouts of depression, this hit hard.

It was actually pretty devastating because I loved writing and I loved reading, Herron said. It was actually my wife who suggested I turn to audio books.

The first audiobooks he picked up were from Terry Pratchetts Disc World series, and Herron said they changed his life. Hed listened to audiobooks before, but it was in passing while commuting to work, so he was worried it wouldnt be the same. But Herron was amazed at how much he loved them, saying it gave the book[s] an entire new layer or dimension. Herron listened to them for several months, using them to help during a difficult time. Then, his sight started to return. Herron said it happened gradually so he didnt really notice, but one visit to a doctors office showed how far hed come and the odds hed beaten.

My doctor looked at my eyes and he personally was kind of floored... he told me, Your vision is back at about 80-percent, and youre going to be fine, Herron said. I was so happy I cried.

Since then, Herrons sight has improved to about 90-percent of what it was before the diagnosis. Hes able to read regular books again, as well as use a computer for longer than a minute or two. But, hes still obsessed with audiobooks. More so... hes making them now.

A couple of months ago, Herron started Tall Tale TV, in hopes he could expose scifi and fantasy writers to a diverse audience, and give readers (especially those who are visually impaired) a new way of experiencing their work. The site focuses on short stories and individual chapters, so people dont get overwhelmed when listening to them. Right now, Herron narrates all of them by himself in his spare time (he also has a full-time job), but is looking to expand with more books and voice actors in the future.

You can check out Tall Tale TV here, with a new audiobook chapter expected to go up this week. Its worth checking out. The channel is a new project, but a noble one. Herrons helping burgeoning writers grow in a genre that many of them have loved during their entire lives, using a medium that helped him during one of the hardest times of his own.

The rest is here:
How One Man Overcame Blindness and Started an Audiobook ... - Gizmodo

Telemedicine is not a new concept. Physicians in Australia were using two-way radio to treat patients in rural Australia in the 1920s. Almost a century later, glaucoma is going remote.

In the glaucoma clinic of the future, patients will be checking their own eye pressure, predicted Louis Pasquale, MD, professor of ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, and director of Glaucoma Service and Teleretinal Program, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston. They will be doing their own visual fields and imaging their own discs. This will convert the glaucoma clinic to focus on the patients who really need to be seen.

Dr. Pasquale moderated New Horizons in Telemedicine session and set the scene for changes that are already underway. The session was part of the New Horizons Forum at the 2017 Glaucoma 360 meeting.

Teleglaucoma is feasible and can play a major role in blindness prevention, said Lama A. Al-Aswad, MD, MPH, associate professor of ophthalmology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. Telemedicine and teleglaucoma are going to be an important part of how we take care of patients in the United States and worldwide.

Telemedicine is practicing medicine over a spatial or temporal distance by using electronic communications, Dr. Aswad explained. Glaucoma is an ideal candidate for telemedicine because patients tend to be older and less mobile. The disease is chronic and the technology exists for remote screening, diagnosis, and treatment.

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Teleglaucoma redefining role in future of blindness prevention - ModernMedicine

By John Stanton

(June 22, 2017)He led what many would call a charmed life.The son of a prominent Cleveland businessman, he played hockey at Harvard, served in theU.S. Navy, and started down the road to a life in banking. Then came a day when he was struck by a disease called retinitis pigmentosa.By the time he was 30 years old, Gordon Gund was blind.

To the casual observer, Gunds blindness has hardly slowed him down. He was a successful businessman with a summer home on Nantucket. He raised a family. He owned several sports teams, including the Cleveland Cavaliers. Through it all he has fought to find a cure for the disease that took his sight.

Gordon is past the point of no return with his blindness, filmmaker Tom Scott said. But it is almost impossible to stop his passion for finding a cure.

Gund is the subject of Scotts 20-minute documentary profile,The Illumination. The film will play at the Nantucket Film Festival Friday at 4:45 p.m. at the Dreamland Theater. It will be followed by a conversation between Gordon Gund, his wifeLulie and Scott.

To read the complete story, pick up the print edition of this weeks Inquirer and Mirror or register for the I&Ms online edition byclicking here.

For up-to-the-minute information on Nantuckets breaking news, boat and plane cancellations, weather alerts, sports and entertainment news, deals and promotions at island businesses and more, Sign up for Inquirer and Mirror text alerts.Click Here.

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NFF doc examines one man's refusal to give in to blindness - Nantucket Island Inquirer

Boston Business Journal

Watertown's pSivida files for European approval of treatment to ... Boston Business Journal After unveiling positive data last week from a late-stage trial of its experimental, long-acting treatment for a leading cause of blindness, Watertown-based pSivida ... pSivida Submits Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) for ...Nasdaq all 3 news articles »

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Watertown's pSivida files for European approval of treatment to ... - Boston Business Journal

LE MARS | Hours before Marty Kurth won his 500th game as a baseball coach at Gehlen Catholic High School in Le Mars, he walked through his house with a black fungo bat, the kind he's used thousands of times to hit fly balls and grounders to his players.

"I use the bat as my cane," Kurth said. "It helps me get around the house."

Coach Kurth is going blind. In layman's terms, he has suffered a stroke in each eye the past 11 months, resulting in a sudden loss of blood flow to the optic nerve. The first stroke, which afflicted his left eye, happened on July 25, 2016. The stroke to his right eye took place on June 3, just 19 days ago.

Kurth is still coaching, doing so from the dugout, not in his coaching box on the field. He relies on assistant coaches Solomon Freking and Ty Kurth (his son) and Jays players such as Cooper Davis to describe action on the field. The Jays won 10-0 at Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn on Monday night, giving Kurth his 500th victory. With that victory level and a pair of state championships (1995 and 1999) among his six state tournament appearances, the Westmar College graduate is a lock for a spot in the Iowa Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

The accolades matter little right now, if they ever did. Kurth remains focused on his 2017 team, a club that began the season 0-4 and has ripped off 11 wins in the last 13 games. When he's not studying lineups or opponents, he's pondering a somewhat uncertain future, one that for the first time in his adult life doesn't include teaching or coaching full-time, as he recently resigned.

"I was at the point of my career where I thought maybe after next year I'd retire," said Kurth, a native of Remsen and a second-baseman on Remsen St. Mary's state championship baseball team in 1983. "Now what? I have no idea what the good Lord has planned for me."

Kurth hasn't been one to run from challenges in the past. A physical education teacher who was toiling as Gehlen athletic director several years ago, Kurth was charged with finding a head coach to direct the girls' basketball program. When his search turned up empty, Kurth told school officials he'd lead the team for a maximum of two years.

"I ended up coaching eight years," he said.

Not only that, Kurth piloted the 2012 Jays basketball team to the school's first state basketball tournament. And, he surpassed the 100-win total, all for a guy who was awfully "green" when it came to high school girls' basketball.

The news of his failing eyesight came as a shock to me. I didn't realize it until Barry Poe mentioned it in a Sunday story in the Journal, a wrap-up of Gehlen's title in the J-Club Tournament on Saturday. I was there that day and saw Kurth sitting in the dugout, an oddity for a hands-on coach who was always prepping the field and his players for another game.

"When I lost my vision in my left eye in July 2016, I woke up that morning and closed my right eye and could not see myself in the mirror," he said.

He began worrying at that point, not only about his left eye, but his right eye, too. Kurth's sister, Cheri Hoebelheinrich, who resides in Florida, lost vision in one eye when she was 37. She lost the vision in her other eye one decade later. Kurth's father, who died at age 56, began losing vision in one eye at age 37, too.

"We hoped that after I lost the one eye that I'd have time, like maybe 10 years," Kurth said. "But not even 11 months later, I woke up on June 3 and knew something wasn't right."

Kurth hit infield to his Jays that weekend in the CYO Classic, which played out on fields in Carroll and Glidden, Iowa. Before the second game at Glidden, a 10-0 victory over St. Edmond High School of Fort Dodge, Kurth had trouble catching a toss from his catcher as he hit ground balls. It's the kind of catch he's made a million times, second-nature.

"I couldn't see the ball," he said.

Jen and Marty Kurth visited the Truhlsen Eye Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical Center two days later. Doctors there identified the cause, the same affliction that struck his left eye last July: non-arteritic ischemic optic neuropathy, or "NAION" for short.

"There's no cure," he said. "It's what my sister had, too."

Jen said that while the condition isn't genetic, it can be familial. Researchers continue to study it. The Kurths continue to pray.

Marty Kurth tried to qualify for a "NAION" study, but his participation was ruled out because he has too many red blood cells.

"We got opinions from Duke University and Johns Hopkins Medicine and they didn't want to give me the medication in the study because they didn't know what the ramifications might be with my blood disease," he said.

Jen Kurth, who works in the business office at Floyd Valley Healthcare in Le Mars, said that "NAION" typically affects smokers, diabetics and those with high blood pressure. Marty, she noted, fits none of those descriptors.

Marty Kurth said he can currently see a little out of the upper right hand corner of his right eye. He also has some peripheral vision in his left eye. "I told Ty that if you closed your eyes so that your eyelids were touching and you tried to see, that's kind of what it's like for me right now."

He hasn't lost his sense of humor, though, and it showed on Saturday as the Jays battled Newell-Fonda. When Gehlen pitcher Collin Buden got ahead in the count before hitting one batter and walking the next, the old head coach became anxious on Saturday: "I hollered out to the mound and said, 'Alex, don't make me come out there. You know, I will find you!'"

The players and Budden got a kick out of it, their longtime coach making the best of a difficult, life-changing predicament.

Kurth knows he's fortunate to have Jen, their children Kendra, Mitchell and Ty, and Jen's parents offering love and support, as well as a world of friends and current and former Gehlen students, players and competitors throughout Plymouth County and Northwest Iowa.

"I'm 52," the Gehlen legend said. "I feel good. The good Lord has a plan. We hope to find out what it is soon."

In the meantime, researchers will continue to work, as will the baseball players sporting the Gehlen green and gold. And the wise, old coach in the dugout? He'll lean on his fungo, listening, feeling, smelling for the optimum time to call a pitch-out or a hit-and-run. Maybe Marty Kurth is becoming visionary, in a figurative sense.

"My daughter wanted to make a shirt after Monday's victory," he said. "It was going to say, '500 wins. Not so hard. My dad did it. The last six with his eyes closed.'"

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Le Mars baseball coach rallies while battling blindness - Mason City Globe Gazette

A number of Offaly residents are set to walk for Fighting Blindness, a small charity with a big mission. They aim to find treatments and cures for sight loss in Ireland where over 246,000 people are affected by conditions such as age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), Diabetic Retinopathy and Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). Additionally, their Insight Counselling Centre provides a professional counselling service to people affected by sight loss and their families.

Fighting Blindness must raise 90% of their annual funding for their work, which is the reason they rely so much on the kindness and support of the community and companies nationwide. In an enormous effort to raise money Fighting Blindness are asking members of the public to join them and walkers from all over the world to discover Marbella on their VISION WALK this October.

Edenderry's JohnnyBrady, Aileen Mallon, Vinnie Leech and others will take on the walking adventure for Fighting Blindness later this year, and they are encouraging others to join them. The walk takes place from October 10-16 and the itinerary includes Aer Lingus flights, 4 Star Hotel accommodation in Marbella for 6 nights, transfers, Gala Dinner on final night and registration for the four daily walks. You can choose either a 5K, a 20K or for the very fit a 30K.

The walks take place daily through the countryside, nature trails and along the beach. It promises to be great fun, challenging and an opportunity to raise much needed funds for research into the cause of visual impairment.

If you choose to join, 50% of the money raised will go to Fighting Blindness. To book, a deposit of 200 is required and the full cost of the trip is 1,800 Euros. Fundraising ideas and sponsorship cards will be given to all those who book. Further information is available on http://www.FightingBlindness.ie or by calling Freddie on 086 8584144.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________ If you have a story for us, sports news, an event happening in your area, or if you want to submit pictures or videos, contact the Offaly Express team via e-mail to justin.kelly@iconicnews.ie, or through our Facebook.

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Offaly people to walk in Spain for Fighting Blindness charity - Offaly Express

LE MARS, Iowa | Hours before Marty Kurth won his 500th game as a baseball coach at Gehlen Catholic High School in Le Mars, he walked through his house with a black fungo bat, the kind he's used thousands of times to hit fly balls and grounders to his players.

"I use the bat as my cane," Kurth said. "It helps me get around the house."

Coach Kurth is going blind. In layman's terms, he has suffered a stroke in each eye the past 11 months, resulting in a sudden loss of blood flow to the optic nerve. The first stroke, which afflicted his left eye, happened on July 25, 2016. The stroke to his right eye took place on June 3, just 19 days ago.

Kurth is still coaching, doing so from the dugout, not in his coaching box on the field. He relies on assistant coaches Solomon Freking and Ty Kurth (his son) and Jays players such as Cooper Davis to describe action on the field. The Jays won 10-0 at Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn on Monday night, giving Kurth his 500th victory. With that victory level and a pair of state championships (1995 and 1999) among his six state tournament appearances, the Westmar College graduate is a lock for a spot in the Iowa Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

The accolades matter little right now, if they ever did. Kurth remains focused on his 2017 team, a club that began the season 0-4 and has ripped off 11 wins in the last 13 games. When he's not studying lineups or opponents, he's pondering a somewhat uncertain future, one that for the first time in his adult life doesn't include teaching or coaching full-time, as he recently resigned.

"I was at the point of my career where I thought maybe after next year I'd retire," said Kurth, a native of Remsen and a second-baseman on Remsen St. Mary's state championship baseball team in 1983. "Now what? I have no idea what the good Lord has planned for me."

Kurth hasn't been one to run from challenges in the past. A physical education teacher who was toiling as Gehlen athletic director several years ago, Kurth was charged with finding a head coach to direct the girls' basketball program. When his search turned up empty, Kurth told school officials he'd lead the team for a maximum of two years.

"I ended up coaching eight years," he said.

Not only that, Kurth piloted the 2012 Jays basketball team to the school's first state basketball tournament. And, he surpassed the 100-win total, all for a guy who was awfully "green" when it came to high school girls' basketball.

The news of his failing eyesight came as a shock to me. I didn't realize it until Barry Poe mentioned it in a Sunday story in the Journal, a wrap-up of Gehlen's title in the J-Club Tournament on Saturday. I was there that day and saw Kurth sitting in the dugout, an oddity for a hands-on coach who was always prepping the field and his players for another game.

"When I lost my vision in my left eye in July 2016, I woke up that morning and closed my right eye and could not see myself in the mirror," he said.

He began worrying at that point, not only about his left eye, but his right eye, too. Kurth's sister, Cheri Hoebelheinrich, who resides in Florida, lost vision in one eye when she was 37. She lost the vision in her other eye one decade later. Kurth's father, who died at age 56, began losing vision in one eye at age 37, too.

"We hoped that after I lost the one eye that I'd have time, like maybe 10 years," Kurth said. "But not even 11 months later, I woke up on June 3 and knew something wasn't right."

Kurth hit infield to his Jays that weekend in the CYO Classic, which played out on fields in Carroll and Glidden, Iowa. Before the second game at Glidden, a 10-0 victory over St. Edmond High School of Fort Dodge, Kurth had trouble catching a toss from his catcher as he hit ground balls. It's the kind of catch he's made a million times, second-nature.

"I couldn't see the ball," he said.

Jen and Marty Kurth visited the Truhlsen Eye Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical Center two days later. Doctors there identified the cause, the same affliction that struck his left eye last July: non-arteritic ischemic optic neuropathy, or "NAION" for short.

"There's no cure," he said. "It's what my sister had, too."

Jen said that while the condition isn't genetic, it can be familial. Researchers continue to study it. The Kurths continue to pray.

Marty Kurth tried to qualify for a "NAION" study, but his participation was ruled out because he has too many red blood cells.

"We got opinions from Duke University and Johns Hopkins Medicine and they didn't want to give me the medication in the study because they didn't know what the ramifications might be with my blood disease," he said.

Jen Kurth, who works in the business office at Floyd Valley Healthcare in Le Mars, said that "NAION" typically affects smokers, diabetics and those with high blood pressure. Marty, she noted, fits none of those descriptors.

Marty Kurth said he can currently see a little out of the upper right hand corner of his right eye. He also has some peripheral vision in his left eye. "I told Ty that if you closed your eyes so that your eyelids were touching and you tried to see, that's kind of what it's like for me right now."

He hasn't lost his sense of humor, though, and it showed on Saturday as the Jays battled Newell-Fonda. When Gehlen pitcher Collin Buden got ahead in the count before hitting one batter and walking the next, the old head coach became anxious on Saturday: "I hollered out to the mound and said, 'Alex, don't make me come out there. You know, I will find you!'"

The players and Budden got a kick out of it, their longtime coach making the best of a difficult, life-changing predicament.

Kurth knows he's fortunate to have Jen, their children Kendra, Mitchell and Ty, and Jen's parents offering love and support, as well as a world of friends and current and former Gehlen students, players and competitors throughout Plymouth County and Northwest Iowa.

"I'm 52," the Gehlen legend said. "I feel good. The good Lord has a plan. We hope to find out what it is soon."

In the meantime, researchers will continue to work, as will the baseball players sporting the Gehlen green and gold. And the wise, old coach in the dugout? He'll lean on his fungo, listening, feeling, smelling for the optimum time to call a pitch-out or a hit-and-run. Maybe Marty Kurth is becoming visionary, in a figurative sense.

"My daughter wanted to make a shirt after Monday's victory," he said. "It was going to say, '500 wins. Not so hard. My dad did it. The last six with his eyes closed.'"

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GALLAGHER: Gehlen coach rallies while battling blindness - Sioux City Journal

Researchers at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Childrens Hospital Center for Vaccine Development will collaborate with a team at the New York Blood Center on a five-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, for research and development on a river blindness vaccine.

River blindness, also known as onchocerciasis, is a skin and eye disease transmitted to humans through the bite of a blackfly, which breeds in fast-flowing rivers and streams and increases the risk of blindness to those that live nearby. The disease occurs most commonly in Africa, but also is found in six countries in Latin America and in Yemen.

The grant will support the continuation of the international initiative TOVA The Onchocerciasis Vaccine for Africa which was established in 2015 and is comprised of 13 world-renowned scientists and research centers. The mission of TOVA is to develop recombinant protein-based vaccines that will support the efforts to eliminate river blindness in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The overall goal of the study is to advance the development of the Ov-103 and Ov-RAL-2 antigens as components of a vaccine against human onchocerciasis. Through the Texas Childrens Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, Baylors focus, led by Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, associate dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor, and Dr. Bin Zhan, associate professor of pediatrics, will be in the development of the production process for Ov-103 and Ov-RAL-2 vaccine antigens. Researchers will characterize the vaccine antigens and co-develop vaccine formulations using previously developed quality-control assays.

The vaccine will fill an urgent gap in the fight against onchocerciasis and will have a strong impact on improving public health in Africa, Bottazzi said.

A vaccine to combat river blindness could greatly accelerate the timetable to eliminate river blindness in Africa, compared to current methods focused only on mass drug administration, said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

Other collaborators on the project include Dr. Sara Lustigman of the New York Blood Center, Dr. Ben Makepeace of the University of Liverpool and Dr. David Abraham of the Thomas Jefferson University.

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Grant funds continued research for river blindness vaccine - Baylor College of Medicine News (press release)

The FINANCIAL -- The University of Liverpool is part of a new $3.6 million international project to put into action a strategic plan to create a preventative vaccine for River Blindness, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the disease from Sub-Saharan Africa.

River blindness, scientifically known as onchocerciasis, is a skin and eye disease caused by Onchocerca volvulus, a parasite that can cause permanent blindness. An estimated 18 million people are still infected with O. volvulus, including 12.2 million who suffer from Onchocerca skin disease and 1.025 million people who have permanent vision loss, according to the World Health Organization and the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015.

Led by the New York Blood Center (NYBC) and funded by the National Institutes of Healths (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a consortium of partners will continue their work on developing a prophylactic vaccine for the disease.

The group will test vaccine formulations in mice to identify those that induce the highest protective immunity. Formulations will then be tested in nave calves against a natural infection with O. ochengi, a closely related parasite known to mimic the immunological status of humans living in regions susceptible for O. volvulus infection. Once the optimal vaccine formulation is found, the consortium will move to clinical development and first-in-human clinical phase 1 trials by the year 2020, according to the University of Liverpool.

Dr Ben Makepeace, from the Universitys Institute of Infection and Global Health, said: I am delighted that the University of Liverpool, alongside our partners from the Cameroon Academy of Sciences, have been provided with a subcontract from NYBC of $900,000 to test a river blindness vaccine in cattle. If it works in cattle, we can be much more confident that it will be effective in humans too, contributing to elimination of this terrible disease from Africa.

Dr Sara Lustigman, who is leading the project from NYBC, said: New tools are desperately needed, particularly a prophylactic vaccine that will support the elimination of this disease rather than only controlling it by mass drug administration (MDA) with ivermectin, which reduces transmission but does not cure the disease.

We believe that our strategic goal should be to vaccinate children who have not yet had access to MDA with ivermectin; the vaccination will prevent infection in this vulnerable population, and also help prevent reintroduction of infection in areas where it might have been controlled through MDA. This is what these essential clinical trials will help us to prove.

Lord Alexander John Sandy Trees, Emeritus Professor of Veterinary Parasitology, University of Liverpool, and Crossbench Member of the United Kingdoms House of Lords said: It is very exciting to see that partners from United States, UK and Africa have joined forces to advance the worlds first onchocerciasis vaccine and continue on a mission I was part of. Lord Trees has made significant contributions to the field of tropical medicine, and in particular to those suffering from river blindness in West Africa.

The other collaborative partners on the NIH grant are Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and Dr David Abraham of the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Dr Makepeace and the University of Liverpool are part of the international initiative TOVA The Onchocerciasis Vaccine for Africa which was established in 2015 and is comprised of 14 world-renowned scientists and research centers. Its mission is to develop recombinant protein-based vaccines that will support the efforts to eliminate River Blindness in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Major funding to advance world's first river blindness vaccine - The FINANCIAL

by Stuart Tomlinson, KATU News

In some cases, the images produced give a better view of what's happening inside the eye, than an in-person exam, Dr. Chiang said. (OHSU)

With the help of telemedicine, for monitoring a premature Salem baby's eyes for retinal detachment remotely, a doctor at the Casey Eye Institute hopes to prevent a leading cause of blindness in infants born before term.

Born at just 26 weeks, Nathan Brown spent more than three months in the neonatal intensive care unit at Salem Hospital.

Mackenzie and Jonathan Brown's second child had numerous challenges, and following surgery to correct a heart defect, OHSU doctors discovered Nathan had stage one retinopathy of prematurity, or ROP, a condition responsible for Stevie Wonder's blindness.

Rather than bring Nathan to Portland for exams, Dr. Michael Chiang and the Browns decided to monitor Nathans eyes remotely.

Premature babies are really small and really fragile, Chiang said. Nathan was about two pounds when he was born. And because of that it's tough to examine them. They get sick during the exams, they move around. And so when you get photos you're able to capture -- if it's a good photo, you're able to capture all those things and really look at the pictures carefully and scrutinize them.

Dr. Chiang says combining sensitive cameras with software programs allows parents with premature babies in remote areas of the state to have access to ophthalmologists with the specialized skills needed to monitor the condition. Mackenzie Brown was skeptical at first

At first I was like, 'Maybe we should stay in Portland. But they said, "Give it a try, and if we didn't like it we could always come back, Brown said. I mean it was amazing; it made it so that we could always be home.

Last week, the Browns brought Nathan to Dr. Chiang's office for an in-person exam. Nathans ROP has not progressed and his vision appears normal. Chiang hopes to expand the remote monitoring to other hospitals around the state

According to the National Eye Institute, of 3.9 million babies born each year in the United States, 28,000 are born prematurely, and nearly half of them are at risk for blindness from ROP.

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Telemedicine: Casey Eye Institute doctor remotely examines preemies for blindness - KATU