CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
August 27, 2011 | By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times
A 35-year-old parolee has filed a claim against the city of El Monte and its Police Department alleging that he lost much of his eyesight after he was beaten by officers. Cornelio David Chavez, 35, was involved in a violent altercation June 24 with several El Monte police officers who were trying to arrest him on an outstanding warrant, police said. Brad Gage, Chavez's attorney, alleged in a claim against the city that Chavez was handcuffed and beaten by officers. A claim is typically a precursor to a lawsuit.
HEALTH
May 24, 2010 | By Amber Dance, Special to the Los Angeles Times
Flashy lasers get much of the attention in vision-correcting surgery, but they can't fix severe shortsightedness. For those wearing the thickest glasses, a newer procedure provides better eyesight with less risk of vision loss, according to a recent study. In this alternative procedure, surgeons insert a new lens inside the eye, behind the colored iris. It's like a contact lens that sits inside the eye. In a May 12 review by the nonprofit Cochrane Collaboration, which analyzes healthcare data, the authors reported that internal contacts make people in the middle-to-high range of shortsightedness happier with their vision than does Lasik.
SCIENCE
January 12, 2010 | By Shari Roan
For children diagnosed with worsening myopia, bifocals might be a better choice than standard lenses for nearsightedness; researchers have found that the condition doesn't seem to progress as rapidly among bifocal-wearing children. Those findings, released Monday, raise the intriguing question of whether there is a better way to treat myopia early in its course, slowing its typical progression. The condition, in which near vision is clear but distance vision is blurry, is usually identified in childhood and worsens until late adolescence.
SCIENCE
December 15, 2009 | By Shari Roan
For an increasing number of Americans, life's a blur. That's according to a population-based study published Monday showing that rates of myopia -- difficulty seeing distant objects -- are soaring. The trend is matched in many other countries, causing eye doctors to wonder what could be causing the decline in human vision. Some suspect both an increase in our close-up work time (think computer use) and a decrease in time spent outdoors. Researchers at the National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, found that rates of myopia -- also called nearsightedness -- in people ages 12 to 54 increased from 25% in 1971-72 to 41.6% in 1999-2004.
SCIENCE
October 25, 2009 | Thomas H. Maugh II
Pennsylvania researchers using gene therapy have made significant improvements in vision in 12 patients with a rare inherited visual defect, a finding that suggests it may be possible to produce similar improvements in a much larger number of patients with retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration. The team last year reported success with three adult patients, an achievement that was hailed as a major accomplishment for gene therapy. They have now treated an additional nine patients, including five children, and find that the best results are achieved in the youngest patients, whose defective retinal cells have not had time to die off. The youngest patient, 9-year-old Corey Haas, was considered legally blind before the treatment began.
HEALTH
February 16, 2009 | Jeannine Stein
Add vision protection to exercise's list of benefits. In two new analyses based on the National Runners' Health Study, one found that people who ran an average of 2 to 4 kilometers a day (1 mile equals 1.6 kilometers) had a 19% decrease in their risk of age-related macular degeneration, when compared with people who ran less than 2 kilometers per day. Those who ran more than 4 kilometers per day had a 42% to 54% decrease in risk.