Subject:  Kids and their 3-inch (-13 diopter) reading bad habits.

Re:  Failure to provide ANY warning about this bad habit to the
     parents.  The important thing to do would be to stop the
     kid's bad habit FIRST -- before the situation got
     out-of-control.

    SCIENCE:

    If you take a population of young primate eyes (measure the
refractive state of all of them) and place half of them in a
confined visual environment, then the half forced into that
"close" environment will experince a refractive change in the
direction and approximage "near" environment.  Remark:  This a
natural process -- and the science is final.  This experiment can
be repeated and the results will be the same -- versus the concept
that the eye WILL NOT change its refractive state in conformance
to this change.

    OPTOMETRY:

    Optometry pretends that scientific proof that the living eye
is dynamic -- DOES NOT EXIST.  Therefore they will provide NO
WARNING about some children's obviously bad habits.  (i.e.,
putting the nose on the page when reading -- same as the above
"monkey" scientific test.  The implication for the 3-inch child is
that his eyes will behave EXACTLY as the primat eye behaves, i.e.,
the refractive state of his eyes will do the same thing -- and his
natural eyes will have a seriously negative refractive state.  The
real issue is for the parents (by one means or another) to stop
the child from doing this.  But of course that would require that
the parents have a clear understanding of the science of the
natural eye's behavior.  (But anyone attempting to provide that
type of information will get "sued" for telling scientific truth.
Does anyone give a damn?)

    NOW ENTER THE OPTOMETRIST

    (Who for reasons of the Neil Brooks effect, will not talk
about the first issue -- of prevention -- but will simply apply a
minus lens.  Sometimes a "bi-focal" but that is probably
too-little, too-late.  In fact the REAL ISSUE is the extemely bad
habit of the child.

    Here is the discussion for your understanding.

    Subject:  Kid reading at 3 inches -- and effect on natural
eye's refractive state.

    ______________________

    From:  RT <RTM...@NOSPAMyahoo.com>

    Subject:  Re:  Appraising the OD

    "Mike Tyner"

MikeOD > > We have several good bifocal studies that show they
     don't offer substantial benefit to asymptomatic young
     people.  So where are these "professionals" recommending
     bifocals for non-presbyopes?

Layman> My 9 year old son was prescribed bifocals.  I don't have
     his script in front of me, but both eyes are around -7.50
     with 1D of astig.

Layman> > He has +3.  The reason being is that when wearing the
     -7's he reads over the tops of his glasses about 3 inches
     from his face because he cannot focus in his glasses at a
     comfortable distance to read.

Layman> > They seem to be working, meaning that he can now read
     and do his homework with his glasses on, but sometimes I do
     catch him reading over the tops of his glasses.  He does
     that consistently if he wants to examine something close up.

Layman> > He has contacts too (Proclear) and in those he's forced
     to read from a greater (and probably more correct) distance.
     He doesn't like wearing them for that reason because he
     can't bring things up to the tip of his nose like he's used
     to.

Mike> > He's certainly not a presbyope!

Mike> BTW:  his glasses are progressives.  he adapted to them very
     quickly.

__________________________________

Commentary:  The real issue is this kids "unfortunate" habit of
     putting the nose on the page.  Nothing was said about this
     -- and no attempt was made to do anything about it -- since
     that whoud have required that the parents be aware of the
     effect that a "near" environment has on the refractive state
     of the natural eye.

Otis> It would be better if the parents had this information --
     and could take effective actions, but Retinula keeps
     insisting against all scientific proof, that environment had
     NO EFFECT ON THE REFRACTIVE STATE OF THE NATURAL EYE.

Otis> I would suggest you understand the effect that Retinula's
     intense bias against science has on the restraint of
     information about this issue to the parent.

Otis> It would indeed be difficult to STOP a child from doing this
     -- but that would be the first step of true-prevention, and
     this certainly is not a "plus" issue at all.  It is an issue
     of "open" information and choice for the educated parent and
     child, and is not a "medical" issue.  Although neglect of
     this issue eventually BECOMES a "medical" issue.  This is
     why sci.med.vision is an open SCIENTIFIC forum where we learn to
     understand this second-opnion issue.

Best,

Otis