Everyday we see health-related social media campaigns popping up on our newsfeed, which are really making an impact by helping more and more health organizations spread the word about diseases that many don’t know much about–unless they’re personally affected. The Foundation Fighting Blindness recently launched their #HowEyeSeeIt campaign, which is their first social media initiative aimed at elevating awareness and accelerating research funding for retinal degenerative diseases.
What Are Retinal Degenerative Diseases?
According to the Foundation Fighting Blindness, retinal degenerative diseases are diseases that affect your vision, they are inherited diseases, including retinitis pigmentosa, macular degeneration, Usher syndrome, and Leber congenital amaurosis. These diseases are caused by genetic mutations that are inherited by one or both parents. People who have these gene mutations have limited or no vision because the photoreceptor cells in the eye aren’t working properly or not working at all. These diseases affect more than 10 million Americans and millions worldwide, even though some of these diseases are very rare affecting 100,000 people or less, which makes it even more difficult for them to seek any type of treatment.
#HowEyeSeeIt
The Foundation has created the #HowEyeSeeIt social media campaign where they teamed up with campaign ambassadors and even celebrities like Diane Guerrero of Orange is the New Black who just like others have done the “blindfold challenge” by uploading a video of themselves performing everyday tasks with impaired vision to help spread awareness of the difficulties that blind people go through. The foundation hopes that by sharing inspiring stories about people with these diseases, they will not only help spread awareness, but also raise the funding they need to continue to do research.
“Fifteen years ago, there maybe was 1 clinical trial and today there are over 20, so there’s a tremendous momentum and we really need to raise awareness and the funds to bring more research and hopefully see some cures in the years ahead,” said Bill Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer at Foundation Fighting Blindness.
Their goal is to continue doing research on different types of therapies that include drugs and drug development that will hopefully lead to medication that will slow down the progression of these diseases because if you could delay the onset of blindness by decades, you can really change someone’s life.
Currently there are clinical trials for cell replacement therapy, where they repair damaged cells in the eyes, as well as gene therapy, where they correct versions of the genes that have gone bad. These therapies are in clinical trials and have been successful in helping restore vision, even if it’s not fully at 20/20, but it’s still a step forward and a huge achievement.
“When people go to their doctor they’re told to go home and learn braille and told ‘you’re probably going to go blind’, which unfortunately has happened to way too many people,” says Schmidt. This is why they need the public’s help to spread awareness and raise the money they need in order to fund the research that is needed to help the millions of people that are affected by retinal degenerative diseases. To learn more visit The Foundation Fighting Blindness and HowEyeSeeIt.org, and don’t forget to upload your video on Facebook,Twitter, or Instagram by using #HowEyeSeeIt.