A study carried out by Michigan State University has demonstrated that facilitating eye donations would give a boost to research on eye health and eye diseases.
About 90% of the 200 patients with eye diseases surveyed by researcher Andrew Williams indicated that they were willing to donate their eyes. Yet eye donations for research plummeted by 28% between 1997 and 2004. Many of the people not registered to donate cited what the researchers referred to as non-prohibitive" reasons, such as never having been asked or considering their eyes were too diseased for research purposes. Beyond that, Williams thinks that many people who want to donate their eyes to research miss specifically designating that they wish to do so.
Williams' study brought out that 41% of the patients responding to the survey would prefer hearing about organ donation from their physician, whereas 37% would rather learn from a pamphlet. In addition, the respondents indicated they would be more likely to consider donating their eyes if they strongly trusted their physician.
According to Williams, "a lot of people aren't aware they can donate their eyes to research. They don't really know how to get the process started. It comes down to a lack of education."
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