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I have gone through a massive number of reports and "studies".
With the exception of the 1913 Bates study -- NONE of them aimed
at the education and success of the person himself. ???
His was the FIRST, and as nearly as I can tell, the LAST attempt
at prevention.
I do not know what you think of Bates-prevention. But this "attitude" that
can never support at least PEVENTION is a true failure for BOTH
science, and the "powers that be" at the National Eye Institute.
We are all victims of the terrible defend-the-practice at all cost,
and the hell with the individual.
I would be very excited to participate and even help organize (if you want help) a study of this kind. I have been thinking about something like this for about a month now and am very excited to get some scientific evidence supporting the Bates Method published. Although I am an Electrical Engineer, my dissertation research is a combination of Neuroscience and Engineering and focused on vision. Once I obtain my doctorate in December I had planned on trying to secure some funding to start a study of the Bates Method. I was thinking of looking into the SBIR program, specifically from NSF or NIH. What do you think? With a large sample size and a well thought out test procedure we could obtain a large enough sample size and convincing progress to have some publishable material that the scientific community would not be able to ignore. Once this initial progress was made it seems only natural that larger studies could be performed.
Once my own vision improves more I would even be willing to go to the State of Wyoming to see about doing some programs in the public school district here in my state.
I believe we need a concentrated, singular effort to decisively continue what the Bates' started. I believe the more people who want to help, the better!
One of the subject that must be discussed vis-a-vis Bates -- is the degree of "empowerment" the
person will accept.
With due respect -- most people's minds are "all over the map". Until we can organize
a group of older students who can truly "commit" to organized prevention -- the issue
will remain as it existed in 1913.
The truth is that very few people (at 20/60) have ANY INTEREST in ANY PREVENTIVE WORK.
Unless they have a very-personal reason (I must clear to qualify as a pilot) you will
indeed have a motivational problem.
It is obviously my judgment that the person himself must be the "leader". You
would use medical people to MONITOR the study -- but NEVER to control it.