MILLIONS of people worldwide may have worse eyesight and even be more likely to go blind because of a long-held but misguided idea about how to correct short-sightedness. A study intended to confirm the theory has instead been stopped because the children’s eyesight was getting worse, Â鶹´«Ã½ has learned.
For decades, many optometrists have been routinely “undercorrecting” short-sightedness, or myopia, when prescribing glasses or contact lenses. “What was done was done with the best of intentions,” says optometrist Daniel O’Leary of Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge, England. Indeed, his study of 94 children in Malaysia sought to prove the…
