StemCell Therapy

If this year follows the past, there will be many preventable eye injuries and cases of blindness.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and all ophthalmologists, are urging people to attend public fireworks displays put on by professionals rather than attempt to ignite their own fireworks. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, more than 9,000 fireworks-related injuries are reported in emergency rooms each year. Of these, nearly 50 percent are head-related injuries and almost 30 percent of these are eye injuries. Twenty-five percent of fireworks-related eye injuries result in permanent vision loss or blindness. In addition, there will be injuries to hands, faces and other parts of the body.

The typical injured person is young: Children 15 years or younger account for 50 percent of all fireworks eye injuries in the United States, and one-third of all fireworks injuries in children younger than 5 are the result of sparklers, which can burn at nearly 2,000 degrees.

The AAO offers the following safety tips:

As parents and adults, we have an obligation to prevent much needless blindness or lessor eye damage by simply alerting young people and ALL adults as to the dangers of fireworks.

FRANK J. WEINSTOCK, MD, CANTON

Professor of Ophthalmology,

Northeast Ohio Medical University

Fellow of the American College of Surgeons

Follow this link:
Letter to the Editor: You can prevent blindness - The Repository - Canton Repository

This entry was posted on June 30, 2017 at 12:44 am and is filed under Blindness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |