Science

http://www.everydaypeopleproject.blogspot.com

According to the study done by Osama Ibrahim, MD, Pediatric LASIK is safe and effective for the children. In the World Ophthalmology Congress he announces that, over 10 years of followup on LASIK in children has shown that this procedure is safe and stable.

The study was done on 264 eyes of 264 patients. He said that the parameter of the study was the ability to wear spectacles, best corrected visual acuity, and the stability of the procedure.

Preoperatively about one third of the patients could see 20/100 or better and majority had of BCVA of less than 20/100.

But after LASIK they were able to achieve to 27% of corrected vision. That makes of 20/20. About half were able to see 20/40 and 2/3 were able to see 20/100. Most important thing was no one lost any BCVA rather the majority of patients gained lines.

According to him “"Stability was very interesting," Dr. Ibrahim said. "There was reasonable stabilization up to 3 years, and then when they reached the age of puberty and normal growth, there was additional regression up to 10 years."

The surprising fact of the stability of the patients having residual myopia was that the patients who have received over correction had less regression than compared to the patients who havn't received the operation.

Moreover he said that "Remember that pediatricLASIK is not to get rid of glasses. It's not to avoid the occlusion therapy, as most of the parents would love, and it's not to stop the progression of myopia. And definitely it's not for bilateral patients. It's only to help these poor patients to correct their anisometropia and help them to wear the spectacles

In a preview of what will surely be a major issue in the 2008 Presidential election, the British Medical Association for the first time will admit that certain healthcare procedures must be rationed.  The Guardian touts this as "a major report that will embarrass the government", and that "Primary care trusts, the local NHS organisations that commission and pay for care from hospitals on behalf of patients, are increasingly rejecting requests to pay for procedures or drugs because they are not perceived to be the best use of funds."

What sort of experimental and wasteful procedures won't be covered by Britain's National Health Service?  "Some PCTs have been bitterly criticised for refusing to pay for expensive new cancer drugs; treatment to prevent older people going blind through age-related eye degeneration and operations to help obese patients lose weight through stomach-stapling."  OK.  While anyone with cancer or their loved one's will surely want to try any treatment that may have any chance of saving a cancer patient, and all of us can sympathize or empathize with them, only the most callous would deny basic treatment to children so that the obese can shop at Harvey Nicks.  And while no one wants to go blind, our eyes do degenerate with age.

"The BMA proposes the drawing up of a new patients' charter specifying those health services to which every citizen across England should be entitled, regardless of the local health authority's financial situation. They also want to see a second list of all the treatments which the sick will get only if their primary care trust has the money, and if doctors decide they are clinically worthwhile."  Terrific.  This is what should have been done long ago rather than pretend that disparities didn't exist in the British healthcare system. 

Admittedly, difficult choices will have to be made.  My sister lives in London, an area which is now stunningly prosperous, even to a well-off New Yorker, and her infant son has a serious (though common and easily treatable) heart ailment.  I accompanied her to my nephew's non-NHS (read 'private') pediatric cardiologist located in a posh townhouse for a routine 10 minute checkup.  The bill, payable immediately, was 500 pounds, about $1000.  Should a less prosperous family not be entitled to the treatment of my nephew on the government's dime?  Or should five other families not get basic care for their children?

Unless the 2008 Presidential candidates are willing to address these issues honestly and not pander to American voters, another generation will pass before we will be able to ensure that all of us receive a reasonable level of healthcare services.  Choices will have to be made, but unintended consequences can be mitigated by the ingenuity of American financiers (read 'insurance companies'). 

I worked on the Hacking Limbs story some more-- an excellent article by Fiona Morgan on the Open Prosthetics Project appeared in the Raleigh-Durham Independent Weekly last December, but there's more reporting to be done on what the rest of the prosthetics industry thinks. So I added some Assignment records to contact various individuals and organizations in and around the topic.

I myself will be talking to prosthetics researcher Jerry Rifkin later this week-- one interesting thing he told me was that he would not have been able to get his SBIR grant (small business innovations) to develop a new biomechanically-designed walking foot if he *weren't* a for-profit company-- so I'm looking forward to finding out what the existing structures are for incentivizing people to make innovations in prosthetics, and whether they're at odds with something like the OPP-- which would be a shame.

If you've gotten as far as this, you surely already know that AZ is shifting gears a bit, putting a good chunk of resources into turning out a reported piece in the short term. I think this is a great idea, since many contributors have been wondering what, exactly, a "finished" story will look like.

Another part of this re-organizing is the trimming away of topics that are not drawing as much attention from the crowd, and focusing on those that are. Thus I am now the editor for Peer to Patent only; feel free to contact me, as always, about any other legal stories you're interested in.

So ... what is Peer to Patent? The idea is straightforward: harnessing the knowledge of the crowd to determine the merits of proposed patents. The US Patent Office is overwhelmed by patent applications, and patent officers are not permitted to conduct outside research in the assessment of an application. The result? There's a backlog of more than 800,000 applications, and the vast majority of these get approved, simply because there's no time to conduct in-depth review. Enter the concept of "Community Patent Review," pioneered by Beth Noveck at New York Law School. The
idea, in its most basic sense, is to share patent applications with people in the community who have pertinent expertise, and in this way to both speed up the review process and make it more foolproof.

The government has recognized the potential in this idea, and is launching a pilot review this spring with 250 patent applications. It's an exciting test of the concept, with real-world consequences, which observers say could be both positive and negative.

If you would like to read more about P2P, see the links on the topic page, and contact me if you're interested in contributing in any way.

Thanks!

Jesse