Eyeballing the Vision Workout: Advertising Pitches for the 'See Clearly Method' Claim That Simple Ex

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/11/AR2006091100845.html

Eyeballing the Vision Workout
Advertising Pitches for the 'See Clearly Method' Claim That Simple
Exercises Can Improve Your Vision Naturally. Plenty of Experts Aren't
Buying It.

By Ranit Mishori
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 12, 2006; HE01

The sales pitch for the See Clearly Method (SCM) is ubiquitous: An
optometrist-created system of eye exercises is so effective at
improving vision, according to promotions on local radio stations and
across the Internet, that you may be able to throw away your glasses
for good. In fact, the ads claim, regular eyeglasses may actually be
making your eyesight worse . The SCM kit costs $350.

Iowa's attorney general, Tom Miller, is not buying it. His office filed
a consumer fraud lawsuit last summer against Vision Improvement
Technologies (VIT), the Iowa company that developed and markets the See
Clearly Method. Among other things, the suit says assertions that SCM
users can "quickly and easily free themselves of having to wear glasses
or contact lenses" are false and misleading.

In addition, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) for northeastern Indiana
has put SCM on its watch list. A year ago, Wisconsin's Department of
Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection issued a warning to
consumers after finding that of the more than 1,850 Wisconsin customers
who bought the kit, half attempted to return it for a refund.

Also last year, VIT agreed to make a minor modification to its
advertising, according to the Electronic Retailing Self-Regulation
Program. This BBB-affiliated review group found that almost all the the
company's promotional claims had been presented legitimately as
opinion. However, it also concluded that one statement -- that the See
Clearly Method could "eliminate . . . poor vision due to aging" -- "was
not entirely consistent with the opinions espoused by the authors and
should be modified accordingly."

Cliff Rose, VIT's founder and marketing director, says the product is
effective and many users are satisfied. "You've got to talk to our
customers who thank me every day," he says. "Every week I hear from
people who thank me from the bottom of their hearts."

The SCM Web site offers a 30-day free trial of the technique for those
who pay a shipping/handling fee of $9.95. But the Iowa lawsuit alleges
that customers who wanted to return their kits had had trouble
arranging their money-back guarantees. In February, an Iowa judge
issued a temporary injunction ordering VIT to change its refund system.

According to Dominick Maino, an optometrist and professor in the
Pediatrics and Binocular Vision Service of the Illinois Eye Institute
and the Illinois College of Optometry, no independent scientific
studies have proved SCM's or similar products effective at treating
nearsightedness or farsightedness.

Karla Zladnik, professor in optometry and physiological optics at the
Ohio State University College of Optometry, says eye exercises to
correct vision have been "long out of favor" among most vision
professionals. Their use "is not accepted by mainstream optometry," she
says.

Henry Ettinger, a New York optometrist who serves as a consultant for
VIT, defended the product in an e-mail, arguing that some dissatisfied
customers may not be performing the exercises correctly or consistently
enough.

"Some of my patients and some other consumers around the country have
been pleased with the results using the SCM," Ettinger wrote. "Some
have been able to function without glasses; others have been able to
reduce or stabilize their prescription."

The Iowa lawsuit states that VIT's promotional materials make selective
use of customer satisfaction reports. The lawsuit alleges that in one
54-day sampling of consumer contacts, six were favorable and 49 were
complaints.

The lawsuit further alleges that some people whose names appear in ads
as satisfied customers had stopped doing the exercises and were back to
wearing glasses.

Looking Back

Vision training programs have been around for decades.

Some are loosely based on what's known as the Bates system, named for
New York ophthalmologist William Horatio Bates, who, in 1920, published
"Perfect Sight Without Glasses," a book of exercises that Bates
believed could "normalize vision."

Bates didn't like eyeglasses; he thought they were ugly. He also
hypothesized that wearing glasses actually made vision problems worse.
His idea spawned an industry -- one that, even while the understanding
of the causes and treatments of eye disorders have changed
dramatically, continues to attract practitioners. Often they have been
accused of quackery and, sometimes, fraud.

The eye works like a camera. The parts in the front of the eyeball, the
cornea and lens, focus light on the retina, located on the back inside
wall of the eye. Once the retina receives an image, it transmits a
signal through the optic nerve to the brain.

In nearsightedness and farsightedness -- considered the most common
vision problems -- the eye does not properly bend, or refract, the
light directly onto the retina. The image sent to the brain looks
blurry. When the eyeball (as seen from the side) is too long, objects
farther away are blurry. When the eyeball is too flat, closer images
are blurry.

The question is whether these problems can be exercised away.

Exercises and vision therapy are not discounted entirely by the medical
mainstream. They are often prescribed for certain eye problems, such as
eye movement disorders (those in which the eyes don't work together in
a coordinated way) or when one eye is "lazy" (a condition known as
amblyopia).

In these cases optometric vision therapy -- exercises supervised and
directed by an optometrist -- can make significant improvements. Vision
therapy has also been used, though not without controversy, in the
treatment of children with learning disabilities and ADHD.

Ohio State's Zladnik says some parts of the See Clearly Method are also
found in optometry vision therapy, "but they are not really [intended
to] improve your vision."

Maino, of the Illinois Eye Institute, concurs that SCM uses some fairly
common vision therapy techniques, but they "have not been shown to take
someone who's nearsighted and to eliminate it."

In fact, there is a basic lack of evidence supporting vision training
for these problems. SCM spokesmen Ettinger and Rose do not dispute
this.

"No knows for certain how it works," Ettinger says. (The See Clearly
Web site explains that the exercises "strengthen and relax the eye
muscles responsible for focusing so your vision can improve
naturally.") Rose adds: "We have never said that it's supported by any
research. . . . All we have to go by is the anecdotal evidence that we
have from people who have improved their vision."

The first controlled study of SCM, which involved 30 participants,
found no benefit. Ohio State graduate student Tracy Bildstein, working
with Zladnik, presented her findings at last year's annual conference
of the American Academy of Optometry. It has not been published.

The study concluded that "using the SCM for one month did not have a
significant effect on distance or near uncorrected visual acuity or
refractive error."

Bildstein's participants were asked -- as anyone purchasing the kit off
the Internet or over the phone would be -- to follow the manual
provided in the SCM kit. It spells out a series of techniques that
include biofeedback, eye massage, "palming" techniques (in which the
eyes are rested on the palms of the hands), hot compresses over the
eyes, visualization and personal affirmations.

The more demanding exercises in this orbital regimen involve focusing
and unfocusing on objects and rotating the eyes in clock-like motion.
Rose says these exercises "work on the extra-ocular muscles and the
ciliary muscle," which are located around the eye. "You have to
exercise these muscles to keep them strong and flexible."

States the SCM Web site: "Just as you can improve your health and
fitness by exercising your body, we believe you can improve your vision
by exercising your eyes."

This doesn't make sense to Eugene Helveston, emeritus professor of
ophthalmology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, who wrote a
2005 article in the American Journal of Ophthalmology about visual
training.

His conclusion is blunt: "Muscles have nothing to do with problems such
as nearsightedness or farsightedness." Though the ciliary muscle
controls the movement of the lens, Maino says simply exercising that
muscle will have no benefit.

"You've got to get out of your head the idea of training the muscles,"
he explained in an interview. "There's no such thing as an Arnold
Schwarzenegger ciliary muscle."

The consensus of most eye professionals is that nearsightedness and
farsightedness are structural problems, correctable only with
eyeglasses, contacts or laser surgery.

Rose thinks that the consensus is more like a conspiracy. "People are
selling glasses and contact lenses and surgery," Rose says. "This is a
multi-billion-dollar market. So some people are very threatened by us.
So they are attacking us. . . . Don't be so quick to condemn us just
because we can't line up all kinds of research."

But it is clear the lack of research hurts, and Rose says his company
has commissioned a formal study of SCM, though he would not discuss
details of the study design.

But proof is what the Iowa attorney general wants.

It's what Zladnik believes consumers should ask for before they part
with $350.

It's what, Helveston believes, professionals and patients alike should
seek.

"All you can do," Maino says, "is state the facts, and the people will
decide." ·

 

Hi,
Just to say that after two weeks of following, loosely, the bates
method, my dominant, right eye went from -2.25 to -1.0.
My lazy left eye is now, after seven months, finally managing to focus
at distance in artificial, or poor natural light. It used to be -3.25,
and quite lazy.

AND my vision in my right eye and, when it focuses, my left eye is MUCH
clearer than it ever was with glasses.
Bates is free, safe, natural, and as far as know, permanent.

The Chinese have a low rate of myopia, I've heard. Why? Could it have
anything to do with the eye exercises their children supposedly do
every day in school?

I'm no doctor/optician, so all I can say is, it's working for me.

Your choice.

Tom

 

What a crock of shit!

You made this up, didn't you?

T.

Hi,
Just to say that after two weeks of following, loosely, the bates
method, my dominant, right eye went from -2.25 to -1.0.
My lazy left eye is now, after seven months, finally managing to focus
at distance in artificial, or poor natural light. It used to be -3.25,
and quite lazy.

AND my vision in my right eye and, when it focuses, my left eye is MUCH
clearer than it ever was with glasses.
Bates is free, safe, natural, and as far as know, permanent.

The Chinese have a low rate of myopia, I've heard. Why? Could it have
anything to do with the eye exercises their children supposedly do
every day in school?

I'm no doctor/optician, so all I can say is, it's working for me.

Your choice.

Tom

 

"Just to say that after two weeks of following, loosely, the bates
method, my dominant, right eye went from -2.25 to -1.0."

Only two weeks? Whose leg are you trying to pull????

This smells funny.

baldy

 

Because it's proven BS.

No!

It's a Miracle!!!!! An honest, perfectly understandable Miracle!

Not to mention the award for the longest subject line in the history of
Usenet.

Geeez. Another wacko.

 

maybe... but the eye is available on ebay for 2 mil. Apparently
one can see a faint image of the Virgin Mary if you look into
the eye at a slight angle.

 

what do you mean when you say your left eye was "quite lazy"? the term
"lazy eye" is oftentimes misunderstood and misused by laypersons. i
believe you are also using an incorrect definition.

this is exactly wrong. the Chinese have a quite HIGH rate of myopia.
I think your understanding of eye problems, eye treatments, and
definitions of eye-related problems is inaccurate. without trying to
be disrespectful, i think you are out-and-out wrong in a lot of what
you think.

 

There are several ways to slow down the progression of myopia (see:
Pang Y, Maino D, Zhang G, Lu F. Myopia: Can its progress be controlled?
Optom Vis Dev 2006:37(2):75-79.) but the Bates Method is NOT one of
them. As far as a low rate of myopia in China....just the opposite! My
colleages from China (Drs. Pang, Zhang & Lu) made it very clear that
the incidence of myopia is quite large and is increasing in
China....not decreasing.....

If you would like a copy of the article let me know....and I will email
a PDF to you.

Dominick M. Maino, OD, MEd, FAAO
Professor. Illinois Eye Institute/Illinois College of Optometry
Chicago, Il.

 

I do not have ready access to the journal your article is published in.
I am quite interested in the topic. I would appreciate receiving a
PDF copy of the article if your could e-mail it to me.

Thanks in advance,


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