Helen Harris, founder of RP International

I spoke with Helen Harris yesterday. She is the founder of RP International. Helen is also blind due to RP. She has been working on this longer than I have been alive. I feel very privileged to have talked to her personally. She seems to have a genuine heart for people with this disease that translates in to a passion for fighting it.

I asked her about the information I found. She said there was a procedure done, in 1984 at Louisiana State University, that partially restored an RP patient’s vision. This woman is still alive and has retained her gains.

The RP patient who regained vision is not the same person who had the stem cell transplant and was at the Vision Awards. He received stem cells for a different disease.

Since Helen is a blind woman who has devoted decades of her life to fighting this disease, I have no reason to believe she is not telling me the truth. The possible implications of this are huge. This means the technology is already here. This is both encouraging and infuriating. Because I do not have enough time in my day to lift the amount of weights it would take to work through the anger, I am going to focus on the encouraging aspect of this.

According to Ms. Harris, this work at Louisiana State University was halted. The patient who regained vision was harassed and does not want to talk about it. Her family denies any access to her. Helen was very respectful of her privacy as well as the personal information of the doctors involved. Smart woman.

So, I have no details on the technique or tissue/ cells used. These are interesting times....