Macular Degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in the developed world. In most instances, it comes with age. With a rapidly aging population, and with people living longer, the condition will become a true crisis over the next 20 years and beyond. Which brings us to a group of laboratories scattered around the University of Iowa campus. Patients who come to the huge hospital's eye clinic don t visit these places.
Few people do.
This is where 14 doctors and more than 100 staffers and assistants are trying to find a way to prevent macular degeneration in future generations. That is years away, and what Dr. Edwin Stone wants people to understand is that life doesn't come to an end when the disease hits. From an estimated 2.7 million cases in the United States in 1970, the number of cases is expected to soar to 7.5 million by 2030. It s our problem, said Dr. Edwin Stone, director of the Iowa Center for Macular Degeneration and professor of ophthalmology at the University of Iowa. It s going to become a really catastrophic social problem.