StemCell Therapy

Age-related Macular Degeneration, or AMD, is a degenerative disease of the the Macula Lutea, represented in red, the central area of the retina. BSIP / UIG via Getty Images

Now researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa and the University of California, San Diego have crafted artificial retinas that can be implanted entirely inside the eye, which offer hope to those with macular degeneration.

The devices are only experimental prototypes with many years of additional research and development likely before they might be ready for commercial use. But

She's not alone in that assessment.

"This is definitely a game changer," Dr. Kapil Bharti, an investigator at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland who is not involved with the research, says. "Previous versions of these work in a very, very low-resolution range. Patients were practically still blind and incapacitated as far as everyday tasks were concerned. These promise that patients could become more independent."

When healthy, retinal cells transmit visual information to the brain. As these cells die off, AMD sufferers lose their central vision. The new prosthesis is designed to be implanted onto the back wall of the eye, where it absorbs light and transforms it into an electrical signal that stimulates the still-active retinal cells to restore vision.

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When the prosthesis was tested in rats, the animals' pupils constricted in response to exposure to light. The researchers were unable to determine how well the rats were able to see, if at all, but they noted that the animals' eyes continued to react to light more than six months after the implant was installed.

"We hope to replicate in humans the excellent results obtained in animal models," Pertile said. The team will conduct human trials later this year.

The findings were published in the journal

The researchers in San Diego have taken a different approach to solving AMD that they think can restore vision to resolutions as sharp as a healthy eye.

There, engineers have partnered with Nanovision Biosciences Inc. to

Images of individual nanowires and groups of nanowires. Each wire can produce an electric current when hit by light. UC San Diego

"We want to create a new class of devices with drastically improved capabilities to help people with impaired vision," Silva said.

The findings were reported in

Neither of the implants is able to restore color to vision yet, and Bharti has questions about the durability of organic eye implants. But, he says, "Those are things that can be easily worked out and can be done in the coming future. Overall, this is very exciting."

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This Tiny Device Is a 'Game Changer' for People Facing Blindness ... - NBCNews.com

Researchers in Italy and California have created a device to help treat people with debilitating retinal diseases, NBC News reports.

The devices artificial retinas that can be implanted entirely inside the eye were crafted by researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa and the University of California, San Diego. The devices are still in the experimental stage and are only developmental prototypes as researchers have years of work to do before getting them ready for commercial use.

But there's great potential to help people who suffer from age-related macular degeneration, which causes damage to the macula, a small spot near the center of the retina and the part of the eye needed for sharp, central vision.

"This is definitely a game changer," Dr. Kapil Bharti, an investigator at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland who was not involved with the research, told NBC News. "Previous versions of these work in a very, very low-resolution range. Patients were practically still blind and incapacitated as far as everyday tasks were concerned. These promise that patients could become more independent."

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Report: Device Could Help With People Facing Blindness - Newsmax

First, lets talk about the individuals Brooks cited. President Obamas approach bears the strong influence of Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and Brooks knows it. In fact, he wrote two different opinion pieces about the influence of Niebuhr on Obama (here, and here). For what its worth, Douthat wrote one too. On the other people cited, Ive written extensively about the influence of Rev. King on Obama.

More broadly, Obama has repeatedly offered precisely the unifying story Douthat and Brooks assert our country needs, one that includes both the traditional heroes from the older narrative Douthat says appeals to many, as well as figures representing a much broader cast of characters, i.e., those excluded from the older narrative, and who are pretty heroic as well. The 44th president wove all their stories into a single history of a diverse, yet unified people working to realize the ideals laid out at the founding. Obamas story of America is, in fact, just what Brooks called for: a progressively realized grand narrative.

To the chagrin of some, Obamas Americarightly, in my viewrejects both the whitewashed narrative that was predominant in the 1950s and the overwhelmingly negative vision Brooks criticized, one steeped in American tales of genocide, slavery, oppression and segregation. To be sure, no one could be elected president running around talking about America in such a negative. Furthermore, anyone demanding that a progressive candidate must do so in order to earn their vote is only helping elect candidates who espouse the opposite understanding of America. Obamas narrative describes our progress as uneven, yes, but nonetheless moving toward the goal we as a people set for ourselves.

Of dozens of examples in which Obama lays out his conception of American history and national identity, here are a few that span his time on the national stage. From his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope, heres one that offers a unifying narrative paralleling what Brooks says we need:

[The] Constitution...despite being marred by the original sin of slaveryhas at its very core the idea of equal citizenship under the law. . . . Of course racism and nativist sentiments have repeatedly undermined these ideals . . . but in the hands of reformers, from Tubman to Douglass to Chavez to King, these ideals of equality have gradually shaped how we understand ourselves and allowed us to form a multicultural nation the likes of which exists nowhere else on earth.

On the night he won the 2008 Iowa caucuses:

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire. What led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. What led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.

From the first day of his second term:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths - that all of us are created equal - is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

In his eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, one of the nine African Americans murdered by a white supremacist in a Charleston, South Carolina, church:

Removing the Confederate flag from this states capitol...would be one step in an honest accounting of Americas history; a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds. It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better, because of the work of so many people of goodwill, people of all races striving to form a more perfect union.

And from his farewell address:

For 240 years, our nations call to citizenship has given work and purpose to each new generation. Its what led patriots to choose republic over tyranny, pioneers to trek west, slaves to brave that makeshift railroad to freedom. Its what pulled immigrants and refugees across oceans and the Rio Grande, pushed women to reach for the ballot, powered workers to organize. Its why GIs gave their lives at Omaha Beach and Iwo Jima; Iraq and Afghanistan and why men and women from Selma to Stonewall were prepared to give theirs as well.

Maybe the blindnessof writers like Douthat and Brooks isnt blindness at all, but instead strategy. Maybe they feel like theyll lose their ability to reach anti-Trump Republicans if they acknowledge that Obama has already done what they are calling for someone to do. Part of me can understand that thinking. But another part of me says that the strategic value of a Republican saying: if its a choice between Trumpism and Obamaism, Ill take Obamaism would be far better. Plus, just tell the damn truth if you know what Obama has been doing.

Giving Obama credit for putting forth a balanced, inclusive conception of national identity wouldnt mean endorsing the whole of the Democratic policy platform. Even on the national narrative itself, if Douthat and/or Brooks want to say that Obama hasnt been effective enough in selling the vision he (and they) have described, thats a point we can debate as well. But if they honestly believe that he hasnt been putting that vision out there time and again for years, well, then they just havent been listening.

Ian Reifowitz is the author of Obamas America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity (Potomac Books).

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The blindness of anti-Trump Republicans - Daily Kos

VIDEOS: OBAMACARE, HEALTHCARE EXCHANGE ISSUESPence: Health Care Setback 'Won't Last Long' | 2:14

A defiant Vice President Mike Pence says President Donald Trump's administration is refusing to accept defeat on health care. (March 25) AP

1 of 21

House Speaker Paul Ryan cancelled the vote on the GOP's health care bill that would've replaced Obamacare, saying he could not get enough votes to support it. USA TODAY

2 of 21

House speaker Paul Ryan explained his decision for cancelling a vote on the GOP bill to replace Obamacare. USA TODAY

3 of 21

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the changes recently introduced to the GOP's health care bill could add billions of dollars to the bill's cost, without increasing the number of those insured. USA TODAY

4 of 21

President Donald Trump gave a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee in Washington Tuesday night, telling the crowd the American people gave "clear instructions" by electing Trump to "get to work and to get the job done." (March 21) AP

5 of 21

Republicans released a modified health care bill in an attempt to shore up bipartisan support to replace the Affordable Care Act. USA TODAY

6 of 21

Concerned citizens protest the GOP health care plan. Nikki Boertman/The Commercial Appeal

7 of 21

Republicans are starting the process of replacing the Affordable Care Act but there is some dispute within their own party about how to proceed.

8 of 21

While holding a press conference after touring Fort Campbell, US Congresswomen Marsha Blackburn and Diane Black did not answer questions about new healthcare law. Shelley Mays and Jake Lowary

9 of 21

House Republicans have unveiled their replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act. The plan differs from Obamacare in various ways. Time

10 of 21

A new poll from MTSU shows that, in Tennessee, opinions are often tied to your political affiliation. Adam Tamburin/The Tennessean

11 of 21

Protesters rally outside Senators Bob Corker's and Lamar Alexander's offices in support of the Affordable Care Act. George Walker IV / The Tennessean

12 of 21

When will America get a new healthcare plan? President Donald Trump is now saying it could be a year from now. Aaron Dickens reports. Buzz60

13 of 21

The prospect of repeal has made Obamacare more popular than ever! Rob Smith has all the details. Buzz60

14 of 21

GOP Congress Members recently introduced legislation that would give the authority to states to keep ObamaCare. Jose Sepulveda (@josesspulveda87) has more. Buzz60

15 of 21

Gov. Bill Haslam is calling on Congress to cede more control over health policy and regulation to the states, as the debate over repealing or replacing the Affordable Care Act rages on in Washington. Wochit

16 of 21

Chris Kane had insurance through Community Health Alliance before it went defunct then moved to Blue Cross Blue Shield Tennessee, now will have to go to Humana. He has concerns about finding the right doctors for his family, a wife and infant. Amy Smotherman Burgess / News Sentinel

17 of 21

The health care heavyweight is grappling with hefty losses and ongoing uncertainty on the marketplace. Karen Kraft / The Tennessean

18 of 21

Changes to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee Kyleah Starling/ The Tennessean

19 of 21

Insurance broker Jonathan Katz of Virginia Medical Plans speaks with USA TODAY healthcare reporter Jayne O'Donnell about some the problems facing those enrolling for Obamacare. USA TODAY

20 of 21

Five states are expected to have just one company selling insurance on the 2017 Obamacare exchanges and consumers in most of the counties in nine other states won't find any competition for their exchange business either. Martin E. Klimek, USA TODAY

21 of 21

Pence: Health Care Setback 'Won't Last Long'

GOP health care vote pulled at last minute

Paul Ryan: 'We came up short' on health care vote

CBO says latest GOP health care bill would cost more

Trump: Health care bill ends Obamacare nightmare

GOP's modified health care plan includes key changes

Memphians say no to Trump Care

The debate begins over Obamacare replacement

Tennessee lawmakers decline to talk about new healthcare law

What to know about the GOP healthcare bill

MTSU poll addresses Obamacare

Obamacare rally in Nashville

Obamacare may not be replaced until next year

Why Obamacare is more popular than ever

Potential GOP ObamaCare replacement wouldn't really 'replace' it

Haslam: States need more control over health care

BCBST departure from 3 metro areas

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee is leaving the Obamacare marketplace

Obamacare Exchange 'Very Near Collapse'

Obamacare exchanges still troubled by enrollment issues

As insurance companies dwindle, patients left frustrated with lack of choice

Price blindness, or a lack of price transparency, affects healthcare consumers across the U.S. Pricing is so opaque that even many doctors and hospitals cant estimate what a service might cost, leaving patients no options to compare or price-shop.(Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

This month, local price transparency company Healthcare Bluebook launched its price comparison tool for residents of Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky.

In providing its full database, Healthcare Bluebook has created an opportunity for Nashville consumers to cure what the company has coined as price blindness, or the inability to evaluate what a medical procedure will cost before receiving it.

With the free tool, consumers in Nashville and the surrounding regions can easily search for common medical procedures and find fair prices as well as rankings of area hospitals and other provider sites to see how they compare on price and quality.

This is the first time any community has been able to access the companys comprehensive database of pricing and provider information, which was previously only available through employers as a workplace benefit.

Price blindness, or a lack of price transparency, affects healthcare consumers across the U.S. Pricing is so opaque that even many doctors and hospitals cant estimate what a service might cost, leaving patients no options to compare or price-shop.

This problem is unique to healthcare can you imagine driving a car off the dealers lot and getting a bill in the mail later? Would you buy a television at Best Buy without a quick Amazon search? Most of us would not, but until recently, there just wasnt a way for consumers to easily compare costs in healthcare.

But Nashville companies like Healthcare Bluebook and MD Save are trying to change that, especially as consumers pick up more of the costs of their care. With higher deductibles and more cost-sharing, patients are starting to ask questions about how much services cost, and if they can be provided at a lower price elsewhere.

Heres an example: How much does a total knee replacement cost in Nashville? According to Healthcare Bluebook, the fair price, or what you might reasonably expect to pay, is $34,357, but costs in the area range more than $20,000 from $22,044 to $54,545.

Because there is so much variation in cost depending on your insurance plan and other individual factors, Healthcare Bluebook doesnt publish the specific cost estimates at each Nashville hospital. But the company does rank the facilities, based on how much more or less than the fair price the service is expected to cost there. This can be very enlightening.

For example, for our knee replacement, only Saint Thomas Midtown is expected to cost at or below the fair price. Not even a mile away, Vanderbilt University is in the red, or expected to have the highest price.

Heres another procedure. How much would you expect a rotator cuff repair surgery to cost? Here, Healthcare Bluebook shows that all the local hospitals Saint Thomas, Vanderbiltand TriStar are the highest-priced sites of care. But outpatient facilities, like Nashville Surgery Center, Baptist Plaza Surgicare, Centennial Surgery Center and St. Thomas SurgiCare are all at or below the fair price of $8,296.

Lets look at one more example, an MRI. Its particularly smart to price shop imaging services, because there can be massive cost variations for something that many regard as being relatively straightforward. As with the shoulder surgery, a chest MRI is far more expensive in the hospital than at an outpatient site. Heritage Medical Associates, Premier Radiologyand the Outpatient Diagnostic Center of Nashville are all expected to be at or below the fair price of $900.

Why are hospitals more expensive than outpatient settings? Generally speaking, its because they have more overhead. Outpatient sites are typically smaller facilities with fewer staff and less expensive equipment. Often, the higher cost of a basic MRI at a hospital is actually subsidizing much more expensive technology.

This is also why some hospitals are more expensive than others. Hospitals with more robust or advanced services, like pediatric cancer treatment or state-of-the-art cardiac care, have more leverage with insurers and can negotiate higher payments for all services.

This leverage is largely driven by the employer-based group insurance market. Because employers want to provide employees with access to cutting-edge treatment, they demand insurers include them in their plan networks. Because providers know the insurers wont exclude them, these hospitals are able to negotiate higher payments.

Eventually, this all trickles down to you via your out-of-pocket costs. Many insurers and employers hope that consumers will soon become more comfortable comparing healthcare costs, and begin choosing less expensive options.

Healthcare Bluebook is a great tool for Nashville consumers to do that. By getting a sense of fair prices, consumers can cut through those complicated negotiations and get to the heart of the matter how much will it cost?

Alex Tolbert is the founder of Bernard Health, a company that provides non-commissioned, expert advice on health, Medicare and COBRA insurance and medical bill consulting. To learn more, visit http://www.bernardhealth.com.

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Can Nashville find cure for price blindness in health care? - The Tennessean

New Delhi, March 26 (PTI): India's government is poised to change its four-decade-old definition of blindness to bring it in line with the World Health Organisation's less stringent criterion and lower the country's blindness stats.

Health officials said the current Indian criterion, which labels a person unable to count fingers from a distance of six metres as blind, results in higher estimates than the WHO stipulation of a distance of three metres.

"With the current definition, we project higher figures of blindness in India in international fora. India gets presented in a poor light compared to other countries," said Promila Gupta, deputy director-general of the National Programme for Control of Blindness, which set the current Indian criterion.

Gupta said the data India currently generates cannot be compared with global estimates as other countries follow the WHO criterion. Uniformity of blindness criteria is a pre-requisite for a reliable estimate of the global burden of blindness, she said.

The proposal to change India's criterion is partly driven by the country's goal of reducing the prevalence of blindness to 0.3 per cent of the population by 2020, in line with the WHO's Vision 2020 goals.

"It will be extremely difficult to achieve the WHO goal using the current (Indian) definition. By adopting the blindness criterion of the WHO, India can achieve the goal," said Praveen Vashist, a senior ophthalmologist at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

The health ministry plans also to rename the National Programme for Control of Blindness as the National Programme for Control of Visual Impairment and Blindness.

"The idea is to strengthen the programme by focusing not only on blind people but also on those with some (less severe) kind of visual impairment," Gupta said.

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Blindness yardstick - Calcutta Telegraph

Above, Dafne Gutierrez and Father Wissam Akiki, pastor of St. Joseph Maronite Church; below, the relics of St. Charbel visited the parish last year. (StJosephPhoenix.org)

Nation | Mar. 25, 2017

Phoenix Mother: St. Charbel Cured My Blindness

After praying before relics, confession and being blessed with holy oil, Dafne Gutierrez experienced profound healing.

PHOENIX When a Phoenix mother lost her eyesight due to a rare medical condition, she feared she would never be able to see her four children again. But then St. Charbel came to her aid.

Dafne Gutierrez suffered from benign intracranial hypertension (BIH), a condition that causes increased pressure in the brain. In 2012, the increased pressure caused her to lose vision in her right eye. Three years later, in November 2015, the Catholic motherlost sight in her left eye, as well.

Phoenixs local CBS affiliate, KPHO, quoted Gutierrezs plea to God:

For me, I was like, Please God, let me see those faces again. Let me be their mother again. Because I feel like [my kids] were watching me, taking care of me 24/7.

For more than a year, Gutierrez struggled to adjust to her disability, which now included occasional seizures, as well as blindness. Then, in January 2016, when Phoenixs St. Joseph Maronite Church announced that the relics of St. Charbel Makhlouf (also spelled Sharbel) would be visiting the church, Gutierrezs sister encouraged her to visit and to pray for the saints intercession.

Although she is not a member of the Maronite rite, Gutierrez visited the church Jan. 16, prayed before the relics, went to confession and was blessed with holy oil by the pastor, Father Wissam Akiki. Gutierrez recalled that, immediately afterward, her body felt different.

The following morning, she rose and returned to the church for Sunday Mass. Again, she experienced a different sensation.

And early in the morning Jan. 18, Gutierrez awoke with a searing pain in her eyes. She remembers how much they burned. And when her husband turned on the lights, she said the brightness hurt her eyes. She claimed, at 4am, that she could see shadows; but her husband insisted that was impossible because she was blind. He later described what he called an odor of burned meat coming from her nostrils.

According to The Maronite Voice, the newsletter of the Maronite Eparchies of the U.S., That morning she called her ophthalmologist, and she was evaluated the next day. Her exam showed that she was still legally blind, with abnormal optic nerves. Two days later, she saw a different ophthalmologist, and her vision was a perfect 20/20, with completely normal optic nerves. Subsequently, she saw her original ophthalmologist one week later, and her vision was documented to be normal, with completely normal exam.

No Medical Explanation

Dr. Anne Borik, a board-certified internal medicine physician who later testified regarding Gutierrezs healing, was called in by the Church to review the case. Earlier this month, Borik a member of St. Timothys Roman Catholic parish nearby, but who attends St. Joseph Maronite frequently talked by phone with the Register about her findings. She explained that the brain condition Gutierrez suffered from causes the optic nerve to constrict. Once the optic disc the spot at which the optic nerve enters the eyeball is damaged, its too late to fix. Because, when the pressure in the brain reaches high levels, as it did in Gutierrezs case, the optic nerves become strangulated.

Unfortunately, once the blindness occurs, said Borik, its irreversible.

Images of Gutierrezs optic disc revealed significant damage: We have pictures, said Borik, to confirm that the optic disc was chronically atrophied. There was significant swelling, or papilledema.

But after Gutierrezs vision returned, Borik reported, there was no evidence of the aberrations that were evident on earlier images. In the post-healing pictures, Borik said, her optic disc is back to normal. Her vision is completely restored. She has no more seizures. That is why I, as a medical doctor, have no explanation.

A medical committee, led by Borik, undertook a thorough review of Gutierrezs medical records, as well as repeated examinations. The committee wrote, After a thorough physical exam, extensive literature search and review of all medical records, we have no medical explanation and therefore believe this to be a miraculous healing through the intercession of St. Charbel.

Unexpected Healing Strengthens Faith

Borik is enthusiastic about the healing, telling the Register, It has changed my practice! It has changed how I relate to patients. Now, she said, referring to her relationship with those entrusted to her care, prayer is such an important part of what we do.

Father Wissam Akiki, pastor of St. Joseph Maronite Church, had a devotion to St. Charbel (see sidebar below), and he installed a large picture of the saint in the parish shortly after his arrival in 2014. Then, in 2016, he arranged to bring St. Charbels relics to his parish as part of a U.S. tour.

Father Akiki remembers when Gutierrez showed up to venerate the relics. Father Akiki approached her. I heard her confession, he told the Register. We prayed together, and I said to her daughter, Take care of your mom, and your mom is going to see you soon. Then, in only three days, she called the church to report that she could see.

Father Akiki acknowledged that Gutierrezs healing has strengthened the faith and changed the face of St. Joseph Maronite Church. People are coming here to pray, traveling from Germany, Bolivia, Canada, Australia, Jerusalem.

Following the healing, Father Akiki planned to erect a shrine to St. Charbel at his parish, with a two-ton sculpture of the saint cut from a single stone and imported from Lebanon. The shrine will be open seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Father Akiki expectedthat the dedication of the shrine March 26 woulddraw crowds, including Maronite Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted and many local dignitaries.

Bishop Zaidan attributed Gutierrezs recovery to the intercession of St. Charbel. May this healing of the sight of Dafne, he wrote in The Maronite Voice, be an inspiration for all of us to seek the spiritual sight, in order to recognize the will of God in our lives and to act accordingly.

Cristofer Pereyra, director of the Hispanic Office of the Phoenix Diocese, told Fox News that Bishop Olmsted spoke with the doctors and reviewed the case. The bishop wanted to make sure there was no scientific explanation for the miraculous recovery of Dafnes sight, Pereyra reported.

The greatest change, of course, has been for Gutierrez and her children. Since her eyesight was restored, Dafnes life has changed dramatically: She can once again check her children's homework, watch them at play with friends, and manage her household chores without extra assistance.

Her prayer was answered.

Kathy Schiffer writes from Southfield, Michigan.

Who Was St. Charbel?

Born Youssef Antoun Makhlouf in the high mountains of northern Lebanon in 1828, St. Charbel (also spelled Sharbel) was the youngest of five children in a poor but religious family. His baptismal name was Joseph; only when he entered a monastery at the age of 23 was he given the name Charbel, after an early martyr. He studied in seminary and was ordained a priest in 1858. For 16 years, Father Charbel lived with his brother priests; theirs was a communal life of prayer and devotion to God.

In 1875, Father Charbel was granted permission to live a hermits life. In his rugged cabin, for the next 23 years, he practiced mortification and sacrifice often wearing a hair shirt, sleeping on the ground, and eating only one meal a day. The Eucharist was the focus of his life. The holy priest celebrated daily Mass at 11am, spending the morning in preparation and the rest of the day in thanksgiving.

Father Charbel was 70 years old when he suffered a seizure while celebrating Mass. A priest assisting him was forced to pry the Eucharist out of his rigid hands. He never regained consciousness; and eight days later, on Christmas Eve in 1898, Father Charbel died. His body was interred in the ground without a coffin and without embalming, according to the monks custom, dressed in the full habit of the order.

For the next 45 nights, a most unusual event occurred: According to many local townspeople, an extraordinarily bright light appeared above his tomb, lighting the night sky. Finally, after the mysterious light persisted, officials at the monastery petitioned the ecclesiastical authorities for permission to exhume Charbels body. When the grave was opened four months after Charbels death, his body was found to be incorrupt. Twenty-eight years after his death, in 1928, and again in 1950, the grave was reopened, and his body was also found to be without decay.

Numerous medical researchers were permitted to examine the remains, and all confirmed that the saints body was preserved from decay. For 67 years, the body remained intact, even when left outdoors unprotected for an entire summer although it consistently gave off a liquid that had the odor of blood. Finally, though, Charbels body followed the natural course. When the tomb was again opened at the time of his beatification in 1965, it was found to be decayed, except for the skeleton, which was deep red in color.

The inexplicable restoration of Dafne Gutierrezs eyesight is not the first healing credited to St. Charbel. Dr. Anne Borik reported that there have been hundreds perhaps thousands of miracles attributed to the saint.

Pope Francis is said to have a deep devotion to St. Charbel. Last Christmas, Borik reported, the Holy Father asked to have a relic of St. Charbel sewn into the hem of his vestments.

Kathy Schiffer

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Phoenix Mother: St. Charbel Cured My Blindness - National Catholic Register

By Payal Banerjee

New Delhi, Mar 26 (PTI) The government is set to change a four-decade-old definition of blindness to bring it in line with the WHO criteria and ensure the Indian data on blindness meets the global estimates.

As defined under the National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB), a person unable to count fingers from a distance of six metres is categorised as "blind" in India, against the WHOs stipulation of three metres.

"We will bring the definition of blindness at par with the WHOs criteria. Because of the current definition, we project a higher figure of blind people from India at any international forum. Thus India gets presented in a poor light compared to other countries," said Promila Gupta, NPCB Deputy Director General.

Also, she said, the data "we generate under the programme cannot be compared with the global estimates as other countries are following the WHO criteria".

Uniformity in the definition across various regions of the world is a pre-requisite for facilitating collection of population-based data on prevalence of blindness and estimating its global burden, Gupta said.

Further, India has to achieve the goal set by WHO which recommends reducing the blindness prevalence of the country to 0.3 per cent of the total population by 2020.

"The Vision 2020 recommends reducing the prevalence of blindness to 0.3 per cent by the year 2020 to achieve the elimination of avoidable blindness.

"It will be extremely difficult to achieve the WHO goal using the NPCB definition since we will be addressing an extra 4 million individuals, blind due to refractive errors. By adopting the blindness criteria of WHO, India can achieve the goal," said Praveen Vashist, in-charge, Community Ophthalmology at Dr R P Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences at AIIMS.

The Health Ministry is also planning to change the nomenclature of NPCB to the National Programme for Control of Visual Impairment and Blindness.

"The idea is to further strengthen the programme by focusing not only on the blind persons but also those with some kind of visual impairment.

"It urges the member states to strengthen national efforts to prevent avoidable visual impairment through better integration of eye health into national eye health plans and service delivery," Gupta added.

She said India currently has around 12 million blind people against 39 million globally-- which makes India home to one-third of the worlds blind population.

The current definition of blindness was adopted at the time of the inception of the NPCB in 1976.

"The probable reason for keeping 6 meters as cut-off for defining blindness in India was to include economic blindness cases which referred to a level of blindness which prevents an individual to earn his or her wages.

"In contrast, the WHO definition adopts a criteria for blindness that is which hampers the routine social interaction of a person (social blindness)," Gupta said. PTI PLB TIR AAR

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India to tweak definition of blindness to meet WHO stipulation - India Today

The treatment is aimed at one of the most common causes of blindness in boys and young men

SCIENTISTS seeking a cure for blindness are testing a groundbreaking gene therapy on British patients.

The clinical trial aims to find a treatment for one of the most common causes of blindness in boys and young men.

Alamy

X-linked retinitis pigmentosa, allows the retinal cells to gradually stop working and eventually die, which prevents the eyes from processing light. There is currently no treatment available for sufferers. The trial, which could feature up to 30 patients, follows success by an Oxford

University team in treating those with another form of hereditary blindness, known as choroideremia.

Last Thursday a 29-year-old man with XLRP became the first patient to undergo the gene therapy procedure at Oxford Eye Hospital.

A virus carries corrective DNA into cells at the back of the eye.

For the treatment to work scientists have to reprogramme a gene called RPGR to make it more stable. The instability of that gene in the retina has previously been a major obstacle to finding a way of tackling the condition.

Prof Robert MacLaren, of Oxford University, said: We have spent many years working out how to develop this gene therapy.

Changing the genetic code is always undertaken with great caution, but the new sequence we are using has proven to be highly effective in our laboratory studies.

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Brit scientists testing 'groundbreaking' therapy that could cure common cause of blindness - The Sun

Msgr. Joseph Prior

By Msgr. Joseph Prior Posted March 24, 2017

(See the readings for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 26)

The collect prayer for Sundays liturgy reads: O God, who through your Word reconcile the human race to yourself in a wonderful way, grant, we pray, that with prompt devotion and eager faith the Christian people may hasten toward the solemn celebrations to come. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

This Sunday is known as Laetare Sunday. The term comes from the entrance antiphon: Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning; exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast (Isaiah 66:10). In the midst of our observance of Lent we are reminded, as we prepare for the Triduum and Easter, that Christ has triumphed already and we readily recognize the joy of his victory that lasts for all time. The Lenten season helps us to prepare for these celebrations that mark our deliverance from darkness to light, from sin to grace, from death to life.

The readings for the Mass help us in our preparations. We are reminded of Gods saving activity in the life of mankind. We are invited to consider that God does not always act in expected ways. He saving activity supersedes all human expectations.

The first reading comes from the First Book of Samuel and recalls the selection of David as the Lords anointed, who will one day reign as king. He will be a great king, though not without his faults. He will defend Israel from her enemies and strengthen the bonds among the tribes and he will eventually bring peace.

Yet here at the beginning, there are no signs of future greatness. When the Lord sends Samuel to the house of Jesse to find the one, the Lord says: Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart.

So Samuel goes and sees the sons. It is not the first-born son, and it is not one of the next six sons who have been gathered. In fact expectations are so low with regard to David that he is not even there. The youngest son is out working in the fields and has to be summoned. When he arrives the Lord says to Samuel: There anoint him, for this is the one!

Jesus, a Son of David through Joseph, likewise was not the obvious one by mans standards. The Pharisees give witness to this attitude in Sundays Gospel reading from the Gospel according to John. In the account of the man born blind, the Pharisees have already determined that it is impossible for Jesus to be doing the Lords work. They determine that Jesus is a sinner because he cured on the Sabbath, thus breaking the Lords law. They refuse to acknowledge that Jesus has delivered the blind man from his blindness.

In their minds it is impossible for Jesus to be the one, for God does not work through sinners. Through their obstinate judgment of Jesus, they are blinded to Gods saving activity among them.

Jesus comes into the world to dispel the darkness of doubt and unbelief. His saving activity is seen in the cure of the man born blind which foreshadows the salvation offered to all.

At the beginning of the account, Jesus is asked about the mans sinfulness. The presumption is that blindness came through sin in this case the sins of his parents since he was born blind. Jesus tells them that physical blindness is not the result of sin. Rather it is this blindness that will allow the glory of God to shine forth in Jesus saving activity.

Jesus tells those disciples: While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. He then goes on to restore sight to the man born blind. The healing is offered, not just for the blind man who will later acknowledge his faith in the Son of Man, but also as a sign for others to see so they too might have faith.

We celebrate the light of the world who is Christ Jesus. The joy is so great that on this Sunday we even use the bright rose-colored vestments to mark it. Lent continues, though, as we journey toward the triduum, the celebration of baptism and the renewal of our own baptismal promises.

The sacred time affords us the opportunity to move from darkness to light, to be healed of our sins and to celebrate worthily the life won for us in Jesus Christ.

***

Msgr. Joseph Prior is pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish, Morrisville, and a former professor of Sacred Scripture and rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.

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Jesus heals blindness, both physical and spiritual - CatholicPhilly.com

THURSDAY, March 23, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers say they have found the genetic cause of a rare disorder that causes children to be born with deafness, blindness, albinism and fragile bones.

The syndrome is called COMMAD. It occurs when children inherit two mutations -- one from each parent -- of a gene called MITF. Each parent is also deaf due to another rare genetic disorder called Waardenburg syndrome 2A.

Further research is needed to learn more about the role of MITF during early development and how mutations in this gene result in the development of Waardenburg 2A and COMMAD, said researchers from the U.S. National Eye Institute (NEI).

COMMAD stands for the names of a number of conditions that affect people with this disorder. It includes missing tissue around the eye; abnormally dense bones prone to fracture; small or abnormally formed eyes; an abnormally large head; albinism (lack of melanin in the skin, eyes and hair), and deafness.

Identifying the genetic cause of COMMAD is important because deaf people commonly choose to marry other deaf persons. People who are deaf may not know that their deafness is associated with Waardenburg 2A, the researchers explained.

Deaf couples may want to consider genetic counseling prior to conceiving a child. If both potential parents have Waardenburg 2A, they risk passing mutated versions of MITF to their children, who would then have COMMAD, study lead author Dr. Brian Brooks said in a NEI news release.

Brooks is chief of the NEI's Pediatric, Developmental, and Genetic Ophthalmology section.

The study describes two unrelated cases of children born with COMMAD who inherited the two mutations of MITF from their parents.

Most people who are born deaf don't have Waardenburg 2A. Along with hearing loss, people with the syndrome have premature graying of the hair, blue eyes, fair skin and sometimes vision problems, the researchers said.

The study was published recently in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

See original here:
Scientists Spot Gene for Rare Disorder Causing Deafness, Blindness - Montana Standard

TERESA RAMSEY

Last updated16:23, March 24 2017

Supplied

Allen Taylor with 200 life size cut-outs of health workers during the New Zealand Public Service Association's health underfunding roadshow outside Thames Hospital.

Allen Taylor was waiting so long for a cataract operation, he came close to losinghis sight.

Born cross-eyed, the Waihi man was already blind in one eye after a botched eye operation when he was 3yearsold.

So when he was told by his optometrist that he needed a cataract operation on his good eye, he was keen to get it done.

However, it took two years on the waiting list before he had the operation at Waikato Hospital last year.

"I was told by my optometrist that if I didn't have anything done shortly, I could go blind," he said.

"I was really worried. When I was waiting, I sort of got used to the idea that I could be blind."

Taylor, 82, said hospital waiting lists shouldn't be so long.

He had friends whose health had deteriorated while on long waiting lists for vital operations, he said.

"It's been going on for a long time but nobody seems to do anything."

Taylor came to Thames Hospital on March 22 to offer his support for the New Zealand Public Service Association's Health Underfunding Roadshow.

The nationwide campaign travelled to 38 towns across the country to raise awareness about health underfunding.

The events included local stories and 200 life size cut-outs of health workers missing due to underfunding.

New Zealand Nurses Organisation industrial advisor Lesley Harry said underfunding was now affecting patient safety.

"Poor access to care, care rationing, health worker burnout and strained infrastructure are now common,"she said.

"The 2016Budget made it clear that the government was not properly assessing current or future funding needs."

Campaign Organiser Simon Oosterman said Thames Hospital hadthe same issues with workload, staffing and funding as the national survey results.

According to a recentYesWeCare.nz survey of 6000 health workers, nine out of 10 people working in health say they don't have enough staff or resources.

The survey results also showed 82 per cent of health workers thoughtthe government's current level of health funding was affecting their workload and work pressure.

YesWeCare.nz is a new community/health workforce coalition for better health funding and includes 83,000 Kiwis working in health, their unions, ActionStation and the People's MentalHealth Review.

-Stuff

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Patient prepared for blindness while waiting two years for operation - Stuff.co.nz

Zebrafish are only a few centimeters long, but theyve got some supersized powers. When their hearts or brains are damaged, they regenerate. When their fins are cut off, they grow back. When they are blinded, they can regain the ability to see.

Its this last ability thats the subject of some potentially groundbreaking new research. Vanderbilt scientists may have discovered the key to zebrafish retina regeneration. If the process can be replicated in humans, it stands to power new treatments for blindness caused by retinal disease and injury.

As I learned more and more about how zebrafish are capable of regenerating most tissues and organs, I was intrigued, especially with the fact that the zebrafish retina can be damaged to cause blindness yet it only takes about three to four weeks before vision is restored, says James Patton, the biological sciences professor at Vanderbilt who directed the research.

Zebrafish, a freshwater minnow named for their characteristic stripes, havelong been a popular test subjectfor researchers. They breed easily in captivity, grow quickly, and as babies are completely transparent, which makes it easy to study their organs. Then there are their regenerative abilities. As they share 70 percent of humans' genetic code, its often possible to use them to study human genetic traits and diseases.

The structure and cell types of zebrafish retinas are almost identical to those of humans. Each contain three layers of nerve cells: light-detecting photoreceptors, signal-integrating horizontal cells, and ganglion cells that pass visual information on to the brain.

So I became even more intrigued as to why humans cannot regenerate damaged retinas and fish can, Patton says.

Retinal damage is behind many of theleading causes of blindnessin the developed world. These causes includemacular degeneration, an often age-related disease in which part of the retina becomes damaged, causing blurring and blank spots in vision; diabetic retinopathy, where diabetes damages the blood vessels in the retina; andretinitis pigmentosa, a genetic condition causing degeneration of the retinas rod photoreceptor cells. Since human retinas do not regenerate, any retinal damage caused by disease or injury is permanent.

Patton and his team became curious about how, exactly, zebrafish retina regeneration is initiated. Previous studies have suggested that growth factors secreted by dying photoreceptors in the fishes eyes might start the process, sparking stem cells in the eyes to begin dedifferentiating (going back to an earlier developmental stage) and then differentiating into new retina cells. But Mahesh Rao, one of Pattons graduate students, got the idea to look at the neurotransmitter GABA, a chemical messenger in the brain that reduces the activity of neurons, noting that GABA had been found to control stem cell activity in mice brains.

The team tested Raos idea by blinding zebrafishthis can be done by putting them in darkness for a few days, then exposing them to bright lightthen giving them GABA-stimulating drugs. They also gave GABA-lowering drugs to normally sighted zebrafish. They found that the blind fish given GABA-stimulating drugs could not regenerate their retinas normally, while the normal fish with lowered GABA levels began regenerating their retinas. This suggested that it was, indeed, a lowered concentration of GABA that started the retina regeneration process.

The findings were published this month in the journalStem Cell Reports.

We hope to use thefishmodel to understand the factors and mechanisms regulating retina regeneration in the hope that we can apply lessons learned to humans, Patton says.

The team is beginning to test the GABA theory on mice. If that works, it will be on to human trials, testing whether GABA inhibitors can stimulate retina regeneration.

If the research does indeed prove successful in humans, some of thenearly 40 million blind people worldwidemay one day have a tiny, striped fish to thank.

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Could the Tiny Zebrafish Teach Us to Cure Blindness? - Smithsonian

Blindness is a lack or loss of vision that cannot be corrected with glasses or contact lenses. A person is considered legally blind when their vision is worse than 20/200. Most people who use the term blindness refer to being unable to see anything or unable to see any light. However, the majority of people considered legally blind can actually see something, like light, shadows, vague outlines or rough shapes.

Blindness can be caused by any number of issues, but the most common are injuries to the eye, diabetes, glaucoma and macular degeneration. Approximately 700,000 people in the US meet the legal definition of blindness.

The treatments available for blindness depend on the cause. Medications or surgeries may help, but often blindness is irreversible. Early intervention can be helpful in slowing the progression of blindness, though generally treatment involves receiving guidance and learning how to function with a visual impairment.

Although blindness can pose some challenges to those that are affected, people who are blind are just as capable of functioning and going about daily activities as people with perfect vision. Blindness does not affect everyone in the same way and those who have it can make their own unique decisions about how to manage it.

Some choose to use assistive devices such as canes or service dogs, while others do not. Blindness can be a visible or invisible condition. Many blind people do not fit into societal conceptions or stereotypes of what a person with blindness looks like.

Early intervention services, support groups and awareness organizations are all available for people with blindness and can often provide a great deal of assistance and resources. Research continues in the hopes of finding new technologies that can reverse blindness.

Read more from the original source:
Blindness | The Mighty

If you have low vision, eyeglasses, contact lenses, medicine, or surgery may not help. Activities like reading, shopping, cooking, writing, and watching TV may be hard to do. The leading causes of low vision and blindness in the United States are age-related eye diseases: macular degeneration, cataract and glaucoma. Other eye disorders, eye injuries, and birth defects can also cause vision loss.

Whatever the cause, lost vision cannot be restored. It can, however, be managed. A loss of vision means that you may have to reorganize your life and learn new ways of doing things. If you have some vision, visual aids such as special glasses and large print books can make life easier. There are also devices to help those with no vision, like text-reading software and braille books.

The sooner vision loss or eye disease is found and treated, the greater your chances of keeping your remaining vision. You should have regular comprehensive eye exams by an eye care professional.

NIH: National Eye Institute

Continue reading here:
Blindness | Low Vision | MedlinePlus

The Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB) was established in 1971 by a passionate group of families driven to find treatments and cures for inherited retinal diseases that were affecting their loved ones. At that time, little was known about these blinding retinal degenerative diseases. Very little research was being done, and there were no clinical trials for potential treatments.

The Foundations goal was clear and focused: To drive the research that would lead to preventions, treatments, and vision restoration for the spectrum of degenerative retinal diseases, specifically macular degeneration including age related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, Usher syndrome, Stargardt disease and Leber congenital amurosis (LCA). Together these conditions affect more than 10 million Americans and millions more throughout the world.

Today, the Foundation Fighting Blindness is the worlds leading private funder of retinal disease research. That funding has been a driving force behind the progress toward cures, including the identification of more than 250 genes linked to retinal disease, and the launch of 20 clinical trials for potential treatments.

On an annual basis, the Foundation Fighting Blindness and the Foundations Clinical Research Institute fund more than 100 research grants. The research projects are conducted by more than 150 research investigators at institutions, eye hospitals, and universities in the United States, Australia, England, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Israel, and Mexico.

More about the Foundation Fighting Blindness

More Information about Retinal Degenerative Diseases

Support our Mission

To Support the Foundations mission through a personal donation (Donate button) or to include the Foundation in your estate planning go to:http://myplantofightblindness.org/

Additional Resources

FFB Annual Reports FFB Board of Directors FFB Senior Staff

Leading retinal research scientists praise the advances enabled by the Foundation.

FFB is an extraordinary organization. It has given hope to people who didnt previously have hope, and it has supported the most important fundamental research in the retinal degenerations being carried out anywhere in the world today. Thanks to FFB, I have confidence that we will understand and be able to successfully treat many of these (retinal degenerative) diseases in the relatively near future... we are on the verge of human clinical trials and that would not have happened without the support of the FFB.

This incredible flowering of knowledgewas nursed into existence by the Foundation Fighting BlindnessIf you were to take the thousand most important papers published in the past 15 years in the field of inherited retinal diseases, you would find that over 900 have authors supported by this Foundation.

The Foundation has given a sense of hope to the families that are affected. Theyve pulled in scientists like me and others to be interested in the problems and apply our knowledgeits a proactive thing. The Foundation says we need this problem solved, how do we do it. There is no other foundation as focused as this one on these problems.

The Foundation, existing as an independent private entity, is able to very quickly fund young investigators and fund new and exciting projects. The Foundation has really played a major role in getting a number of important projects off the ground, which would not have happened without its support. The Foundation Fighting Blindness has stimulated interaction and collaboration between different scientific groups and centers, and it has funded a variety of research meetings that have helped scientists learn about areas outside their own, so they can do more productive and more powerful research.

The Foundation Fighting Blindness has played a tremendous role in my development as an ophthalmologist and scientist and in the growing of our program. The Foundation has gathered together scientists from all over the world who are interested in a similar thing: to try to cure these diseasesPeople have to say, yes Im interested in helping this year, and Im interested in helping next year because it just isnt Ok for a child to be born missing one gene product in their retina. The Foundation has been a kind of antenna conveying the resources from society to the scientist and they have done a very successful job of it.

For more information, please contact the Foundation at: 7168 Columbia Gateway Drive, Suite 100 Columbia, MD 21046 800-683-5555 800-683-5551 TDD info@FFB.org

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About Us | blindness.org

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 22, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Blindness at an early age triggers the brain to make new connections that enhance hearing, smell and touch, as well as memory and language, a new study suggests.

Researchers used MRIs to scan the brains of 12 people who were born blind or lost their sight by age 3.

The scans showed a number of changes in the brains of the people who were blind that weren't present in scans from people who could still see.

Changes caused by early blindness "may be more widespread than initially thought," lead author Corinna Bauer, a scientist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, said in a hospital news release.

"We observed significant changes not only in the occipital cortex [where vision is processed], but also areas implicated in memory, language processing and sensory motor functions," added Bauer.

Learning more about these connections could lead to more effective rehabilitation programs to help blind people, the researchers suggested.

According to senior study author Lotfi Merabet, "Even in the case of being profoundly blind, the brain rewires itself in a manner to use the information at its disposal so that it can interact with the environment in a more effective manner." Merabet is director of the Laboratory for Visual Neuroplasticity at the Schepens Eye Research Institute at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston.

"If the brain can rewire itself -- perhaps through training and enhancing the use of other modalities like hearing, and touch and language tasks such as Braille reading -- there is tremendous potential for the brain to adapt," added Merabet.

The study was published online March 22 in the journal PLOS ONE.

WebMD News from HealthDay

SOURCE: Massachusetts Eye and Ear, news release, March 22, 2017

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Brain 'Rewires' to Work Around Early Blindness - WebMD

CORBIN, Ky. (WYMT)- On Tuesday, dozens gathered for the Second Annual 'Lights Out Dinner in the Dark' event in Corbin.

The event is hosted by The Freeman Foundation and aims to teach others what it's like to live with a disability.

Travis Freeman, the CEO of the Freeman Foundation, lost his eyesight at just 12 years old.

Now he has made it his mission to educate others about living with a disability.

"We want to break down the barriers that exist between people who have disabilities and those who do not have disabilities," said Freeman.

Which is why he started the 'Lights Out Dinner in the Dark' event.

Guests at the event are blindfolded from the time they walk in until the dinner is over.

Freeman hopes it will give others a better idea of what it's like to live without eyesight.

"We want to break down those barriers and just expose people to what it's like to do things a little differently and have a different kind of experience and have some fun," said Freeman.

The guest speaker of the event and Purple Heart recipient, Matthew Bradford, said it was an honor to speak at the event. He hopes his story of living with disabilities, will help others.

In 2007, Bradford was injured in Iraq when he stepped on an IED.

He ended up losing both of his legs and his eyesight.

"I mean honestly when I got hurt, the legs were my biggest worry," said Bradford. "My one heartache that I had. I didn't really care about losing my vision, it kind of just caught up with me later on."

He said while his injuries changed his life, they didn't stop his life. In fact, his motto is "No legs, no vision, no problem".

He hopes that after the blindfolded dinner, folks will have a greater appreciation for what they can do in life.

"Just don't take things for granted because you never know," said Bradford. "People sometimes don't realize that it is difficult until they're put in that situation."

The Freeman Foundation will also hold a blindfolded 5K this summer. An official date has not been set however organizers hope it will take place in July.

Read more:
'Dinner in the Dark' gives first hand look at blindness - WYMT News (press release)

Taking care of you eyes (NTV News).JPG

Your alarm goes off, you get up, walk to your bathroom, put in your contact lenses and jump in the shower - it's time to start your day, but you could be getting an eye infection and not even know it.

We only have one pair of eyes, so its important that we take care of them. Proper hygiene is the most important step; from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep.

"A corneal ulcer is the biggest concern, that's when the infection has actually started to eat its way into the cornea; that would be the worst case scenario," says Dr. Nathan Bolen with Advanced Eye Care in Hastings.

An infection that can be caused by water.

"Whether it's lake water or chlorinated pool water or even tap water, the biggest risk is infection," says. Dr. Bolen. We would like you to try and avoid exposure to any kind of water at all. Water is never good for contact lenses, so even if thats tap water or in the shower, if you do accidentally come into contact with water, wed like you to take your contact lenses out, clean them off really well, disinfect them or even throw them away if they are disposable.

It's an infection known as microbial keratitis which can lead to permanent vision loss.

"If it's bad enough, the real concern is if that bacteria or that microorganism ate all the way through the cornea where the cornea was perforated then the infection can enter the eyeball, then it's a very serious infection at that point," explains Dr. Bolen. Even if we can get the infection under control in time, theres also a concern about leaving a scar, and if you have a scar on the cornea that can lead to permanent vision loss.

He says that washing your hands can prevent some of these germs that can cause some problems when it comes to your eyes, so proper handwashing is important.

"After you take your contacts out you want to make sure that you are cleaning them really well with either a multipurpose solution or a hydrogen peroxide type solution," says Dr. Bolen.

He recommends changing your contact case every three months and never reusing old solution. He also recommends following the instructions on the bottle of solution or from your doctor, Thats going to include rubbing, rinsing the contract lenses, you want to store them in a new case with brand new, fresh solution every night.

He says time can be against you if you do have an eye infection.

"Anytime a person ever feels any irritation or if their eye is red at all, we always encourage patients to come in as soon as possible because it is a race against time, sometimes if the infection is bad enough it can just be a matter of a day before things can really turn sour," says Dr. Bolen.

He also recommends contact lens wearers don't sleep in their contact lenses as that can also cause an infection, The most common problems we run into would be people sleeping in their contact lenses, if they arent made to be slept in and then also not replacing the contact lenses frequently enough.

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Showering with your contact lenses could lead to permanent vision loss - NTV

U.S. Stem Cell Clinic is in the spotlight after three patients reportedly lost their eyesight following procedures here.

The Sunrise facility offers stem cell treatments for a range of diseases and chronic disorders and yet it has no medical facility license.

Heres what you might not know: It doesnt need one.

The facility falls under a regulatory loophole. Regulators with Floridas Agency for Health Care Administration, which licenses health care facilities like hospitals and rehabilitation clinics, say they have no authority over stem cell operations. Neither does the Florida Department of Health, which only has regulatory power over personnel like licensed doctors and nurses working in these facilities.

Both state agencies say that authority lies with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Yet even here, guidelines for adipose stem cells (harvested from the clients themselves) are unclear.

The FDA could not discuss whether U.S. Stem Cell has faced or could face a potential investigation, spokeswoman Andrea Fischer said. She said the agency is working on guidelines that will clarify how human cells, tissues and products based on them should be regulated. The agency also been posting consumer warnings for years alerting patients to ask if theyre going to be part of an FDA-regulated clinical study.

We really dont know what standards these [clinics] have to conform to, said Dr. Thomas Albini, an associate professor of clinical ophthalmology at the University of Miamis Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. He recently co-authored a report in the New England Journal of Medicine about the U.S. Stem Cell cases.

If someone were licensed, that license would be on the line, he said.

There were no sanctions against the private, for-profit clinic after three women, in their 70s and 80s, lost their sight in 2015 following procedures where they had fat cells liposuctioned out of their belly area and injected into both of their eyes. The women had macular degeneration, a common disorder which eventually leads to blindness. They each paid $5,000 for the procedure.

Two traveled from out of state, and one came from Floridas west coast. At least two went to U.S. Stem Cell because of clinical trials listed on clinicaltrials.gov, a database managed by the National Institutes of Health, said Albini, who along with a Bascom Palmer colleague treated two of the patients shortly after their clinic visits. Their complications included detached retinas, optic nerve damage and eye hemorrhages.

The clinicaltrials.gov posting now says the study was withdrawn prior to enrollment.

On its website, the Sunrise facility says its team of medical researchers and practitioners can draw stem cells from their clients own fat tissue and reinject them into their bodies. There, the cells regenerative power can beat back medical disorders like Parkinsons, congestive heart failure and rheumatoid arthritis, according to the company.

In a written statement, the company, originally called Bioheart, said neither the clinic nor its affiliate, U.S. Stem Cell Inc., is currently treating eye patients.

Since 2001, our clinics have successfully conducted more than 7,000 stem cell procedures with less than 0.01% adverse reactions reported, the statement said. We are unable to comment further on specific cases due to patient confidentiality or legal confidentiality obligations.

The company declined to produce published papers about its research or any trials it had conducted.

Albini questions whether a true trial ever existed. Typically, participants of a clinical trial dont pay for treatment and continue to be monitored through followup appointments. Neither was the case for the three women who went to U.S. Stem Cell Clinic, Albini said.

He also said no legitimate researcher would do an experimental procedure, with no clinical track record, on both of a patients eyes, risking blindness. These people were way out of their league, he said.

Two of the women sued for negligence, failure to warn, and allegations regarding how the product manufactured from their own bodies was defective. Both settled, and their cases were dismissed. Attorneys for U.S. Stem Cell argued that the cases, as filed, involved medical negligence and, as such, needed to be refiled to conform with state law, according to court records.

Attorney Benjamin Bedard, who handled both dismissal filings, could not be reached for comment.

Albini said the FDA had him speak at a workshop in September regarding its concerns about experimental, unlicensed stem cell clinics.

My understanding is its a billion-dollar industry already, he said. We dont have great treatments for people with these conditions. There are people who want tomorrows medicines today and are willing to pay for it.

Staff researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.

dlade@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4295

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Sunrise stem cell clinic behind blindness cases is largely unregulated - Sun Sentinel

March 20, 2017 New trial for blindness rewrites the genetic code. Credit: Shutterstock

Researchers have started a new gene therapy clinical trial to treat X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (XLRP), the most common cause of blindness in young people.

Retinitis pigmentosa is currently untreatable and leads to a slow and irreversible loss of vision.

The trial is being run by Nightstarx Ltd (Nightstar), a biopharmaceutical spinout company of Oxford developing gene therapies for inherited retinal diseases, and researchers from the University of Oxford. On 16 March 2017, a 29 year old British man became the first patient with X-linked retinitis pigmentosa to undergo gene therapy. The operation took place at the Oxford Eye Hospital, part of the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Gene therapy uses a virus to insert the correct copy of a defective gene into cells, and has shown promise for treating genetic causes of blindness. Unfortunately, the gene involved with retinitis pigmentosa, RPGR, is highly unstable, making gene therapy particularly challenging. The RPGR gene's unusual genetic code has made it very difficult to work with in the laboratory.

However, a research team led by Professor Robert MacLaren from the University of Oxford has reprogrammed the genetic code of RPGR to make it more stable, but in a way that does not affect its function. This has allowed the gene to be delivered reliably by a viral vector into retinal cells.

The current trial is the first in the world to test a treatment for retinitis pigmentosa caused by RPGR.

Robert MacLaren, Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford, who is leading the trial said: "The effect of RPGR-related disease on families with retinitis pigmentosa is devastating and we have spent many years working out how to develop this gene therapy. Changing the genetic code is always undertaken with great caution, but the new sequence we are using has proven to be highly effective in our laboratory studies.

"The genetic code for all life on Earth is made up of four letters G, T, A and C. In RPGR, however, half of the gene comprises only two letters A and G. This makes the gene very unstable and prone to mutations, making it a lead cause of blindness in patients with retinitis pigmentosa. RPGR is vital for the light sensitive cells at the back of the eye."

The trial has started at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is sponsored by Nightstar, a University of Oxford spin-out company. It is supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Up to 30 patients will be enrolled.

David Fellows, Chief Executive Officer of Nightstar remarked: "We are delighted to report the advancement of this exciting gene therapy program into patients. If successful, this gene therapy has the potential to transform the lives of many patients (and their families) around the world."

Dr Aniz Girach, Chief Medical Officer of Nightstar commented: "The current trial is an open-label dose-escalation study designed to enrol at least 24 patients who will receive a single subretinal injection of the RPGR gene therapy. The primary goal of the study is to assess safety and tolerability of this gene therapy over a 12 month period."

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Researchers at Ohio State University Medical Center and Nationwide Children's Hospital have developed a viral vector designed to deliver a gene into the eyes of people born with an inherited, progressive form of blindness ...

New genes which help prevent prostate, skin and breast cancer development in mice have been discovered by researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators. The study identified genes that cooperate ...

Like almost all light-sensitive living beings, human beings follow biological rhythms set on a period of about 24 hours. The circadian clock (from Latin "circa" and "dies", which means "about a day") therefore describes the ...

The majority of genes associated with nephrotic syndrome (NS) in humans also play pivotal roles in Drosophila renal function, a conservation of function across species that validates transgenic flies as ideal pre-clinical ...

Britain's Newcastle University says its scientists have received a license to create babies using DNA from three people to prevent women from passing on potentially fatal genetic diseases to their childrenthe first time ...

Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have discovered a common genetic variant that greatly impacts normal brain aging, starting at around age 65, and may modify the risk for neurodegenerative diseases. The ...

Studies of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases have identified hundreds of genetic regions thought to be associated with these conditions. At the same time, studies of expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) have revealed ...

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New trial for blindness rewrites the genetic code - Medical Xpress