GRACE HALLORAN
In 1979, the National Eye Institute released some very alarming figures regarding visual loss and blindness in this country. It is estimated that over ten million Americans (as of 1979) had visual loss that could not be corrected by any conventional methods. At a cost of over eight billion dollars to the taxpayers, these figures are indeed alarming. However, the most startling fact was the prediction that the four leading causes of blindness–cataracts, glaucoma, senile macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy would increase in the next fifty years!