An eye for a tooth, a tooth for an eye

One of the most aggravating and disheartening aspects of the Trumpian elimination of so much medical research funding is that there will be all sorts of wonderful, seemingly miraculous outcomes that will be delayed or disappeared entirely when the research dollars dry up. Rsearch aimed at prevention, aimed at cure, aimed at making life more liveable for those with maladies that might or might not have been preventable or curable.  

I thought of this one-more-reason-to-fear-and-loathe-the-current-administration when I read recently about something called "tooth-in-eye" surgery.

This complex form of surgery wasn't developed through U.S. government research funding. It was created by an Italian opthalmic surgeon in the 1960's, and has rarely been performed. 

But for Brent Chapman, a 34 year old Canadian, "tooth-in-eye" surgery has been a life-changer.

Chapman went blind at the age of 13 after having a terrible (and obviously extremely rare) reaction to taking Ibuporfen - a reaction that left him blind in both eyes. 

Chapman spent his teen and young adult years trying to find a treatment that would restore his vision.  Then he ran into Vancouver opthamoogist Greg Moloney.

Moloney suggested the rare “tooth-in-eye” procedure on Chapman’s right eye. The surgery — which was developed in the 1960s and has only been performed on several hundred people worldwide — entails multiple steps.

The patient’s tooth is pulled and then flattened, and a small hole is then drilled in the center. A prosthetic lens is fitted over the hole, and the tooth is ultimately placed at the front of the patient’s eye, where they can see through the new lens.

Moloney explained to Today.com that a tooth from the patient is used because it decreases the chances that the body will perceive the object as a foreign body and reject it.

“Usually, the reaction is shock and surprise and frank disbelief that it [the procedure] even exists,” Moloney told the outlet while discussing the treatment. (Source: People)

Shock, surprise, frank disbelief? Yeah, that would be me. Brent Chapman's initial reaction was that it "sounded a little science fictiony." Crazy was a word Chapman used.

I wasn't thinking "science fictiony." For whatever reason, I thought of a James Bond villain - Eyetoother? - plucking out a tooth and screwing it into his eyeball. Am I the only one who can hear Shirley Bassey belting out the theme to Goldfinger? Only this time, the villain is Eyetoother.

Eyetoother, he's the man, the man with the screwball eye. Such a weird eyeball...Pretty girl, beware of his toothy eye, for you will die.

But Dr. Moloney is neither Bond villain nor sci-fi weirdo. He's just the fellow who looked at an old procedure and thought it might work for Chapman. Which it did.

No, eye tooth surgery has nothing to do with Trump. But there could be tooth-in-eye breakthroughs of the future that we'll never see. Drugs, treatments, procedures, interventions that help the deaf hear, the paralyzed regain mobility, save parents from watching their children suffer and die from something that could have been prevented, cured, treated. 

We will never know the totality of what we'll lose out on, thanks to the idiotically insane cutbacks to research funding now being made. And can't you see the idiotic DOGE bro seeing an application for something like tooth-in-eye surgery and chortling to his buddies as he clicks delete on it?

Meanwhile, we can celebrate with Ben Chapman, and laud Dr. Greg Moloney. Tooth for an eye seems like a pretty worthwhile exchange.

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Image Source: iStock