Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 12A
FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS Sunday, August 26,2001
Kiwanis Club offers free pre-K vision screening
By Cheryl Rhodes
Features Writer
As she shuffles the miniature eye
charts in her hands, it seems a bit like
a card trick.
Designed to engage children in
their vision screening, the materials
Laurie Irby is holding feature sym
bols and letters clearly recognizable
to 4-year-olds.
But today’s audience is signifi
cantly older.
Because no free vision screening
is currently offered to Forsyth
County pre-kindergarten children,
the Cumming Kiwanis Club is volun
teering to help Prevent Blindness
Georgia do the honors.
“Serving the youth of our com
munity is our charter,” explains
Donate
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Your car can do a lot of
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Just call (800) 488-CARS
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The foundation will mail
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Debra Coco, the club’s treasurer, as
she eyes the training charts on the
overhead projector.
“We wanted to literally change
the way kids see the world and so
hope to conduct at least one vision
screening a month through the
Forsyth County pre-kindergarten
program.”
According to Irby, program direc
tor for Prevent Blindness Georgia,
one in 20 preschool children has a
vision problem that could result in
amblyopia, or lazy eye, if it’s not
treated.
“That’s more than 30,000 chil
dren in Georgia who potentially have
a vision problem that needs to be
treated,” she says.
“But less than 20 percent ever
have a screening that would help
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Photo/Submitted
Church to host self defense course
Christ Community Church welcomes black belt instructor Danny Payne, who will
teach a course in self defense on Monday, Aug. 20, from 7-9 p.m. at the church at
5455 Campground Rd. in the Midway community. Cost is $3. For information, call
(770) 442-8600.
Health notes
American Red Cross
... will have blood drives at the following
locations:
• Lanier United Methodist Church’s
Sanctuary in Cumming Monday, Aug. 27,
from 2-7:30 p.m.
• Johns Creek Baptist Church Fellowship
Hall in Alpharetta Monday, Sept. 3, from
2:30-7:30 p.m.
• Greens Comer Kroger in Cumming in the
HEALTH & SAFETY
Do you desire to develop and enhance your ministry potential?
Christ Fellowship Church announces the opening of the
Sduid QjfMiM&riaL IfmlhiLL
Classes begin September 6, 2001
Monday and Thursday Evenings
7:00 p.m. -10:00 p.m.
Registration for the 2001-2002 term is underway.
Individual courses are also available.
Call or come by the church office for an application.
Christ Fellowship Church
2057 Dawson Forest Road East
Dawsonville, GA 30534
(706) 216-3248
The Father’s House Ministries
detect the problem. Fewer than 14
percent of children that age go to an
eye doctor and have an eye exam.”
“Vision problems can significant
ly affect your child’s ability to learn,”
said Dr. Paul Ajamian, president of
the Georgia Optometric Association,
“because 80 percent of what a child
learns in school comes through
vision.”
According to GOA, symptoms
that may assist in the early detection
of eye and vision difficulties can
include blurring of vision at any
time, a short attention span or fre
quent daydreaming, a dislike or
avoidance of close work, difficulty
remembering what is read, frequent
loss of place while reading, poor eye
hand coordination when copying,
throwing, buttoning clothing or tying
Bloodmobile Wednesday, Sept. 5, from 3-8
p.m.
• Scientific Games in Alpharetta, second
floor Thursday, Sept. 6, from 2:30-7:30 p.m.
• Baptist Medical Center in Cumming
Friday, Sept. 7, from 12-6 p.m.
For more information, call (800) 282-1722
or visit the Web site at www.negaredcross.org.
See HEALTH, Page 13A
shoes, a drop in scholastic or sports
performance, frequent eye rubbing,
blinking, squinting, headaches, itch
ing, nausea and dizziness, tilting or
turning of head to use one eye or
poor reading ability.
An inability to see clearly can
impact children, says Irby, in ways
more far-reaching than simple visual
clarity.
“Often, children with undetected
vision problems don’t have very
good self-esteem,” she explains.
“They aren’t comfortable in a new
environment, because they can’t see
it very well, or feel clumsy and stum
ble because they don’t have good
depth perception, or can’t catch a
ball very well because they don’t see
it coming and so they are probably
the last to be picked each time sides
American Legion
fights for studies
of Agent Orange
The government should
waste no time and spare no
expense investigating the
relationship between a rare
childhood leukemia and
Vietnam War veterans’ expo
sure to Agent Orange, acc
ording to American Legion
National Commander Ray G.
Smith.
Agent Orange, a herbicide
containing cancer-causing
dioxin was sprayed by U.S.
troops in Vietnam.
Children of veterans
exposed to Agent Orange
during the war were found
more likely to have acute
myelogenous leukemia, a
finding which would allow
the Department of Veterans
Affairs to award disability
compensation.
But the link between
Agent Orange and AML was
based largely upon a review
of an Australian study that
the Institute of Medicine of
the National Academy of
Sciences conducted for the
VA.
Since Australian resear
chers corrected their study
for “faulty data” and con
cluded that no AML-Agent
Orange relationship exists,
Veterans Affairs Secretary
Anthony J. Principi urged the
IOM to reevaluate whether
there is enough evidence to
award disability compensa
tion.
“The government needs to
nail this one down and
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are chosen in a game.
“Some children tune out the
teacher because they can’t see clearly
or move closer to a disturbance or
activity because they can’t see and
they might get in trouble,” says Irby.
“So the problems can relate, not just
to school, but also to psychological,
physical and emotional develop
ment.”
According to Coco, teams of
three can adequately screen a group
of 20 children in approximately three
hours. C
lub members plan to conduct at
least one pre-kindergarten facility
screening each month during the
coming school year.
For those children who gain bet
ter vision as a result, the improve
ment will surely seem magic.
fast; families are affected by
this,” Smith said.
“We, in The American
Legion, believe in good sci
ence as much as Secretary
Principi does. But, as guar
dians of the best interests of
veterans and their families,
we want to ensure that just
compensation is neither
denied nor delayed based
upon the mere possibility of
a mistake.
“The American Legion
will monitor the situation
with the conviction that our
government must not prema
turely close the book on the
childhood victims of Agent
Orange and their families.”
AML is rare, according to
the IOM, accounting for 8
percent of childhood cancers
and striking one child out of
every 100,000.
In the meantime, Smith
says his 2.8-million member
American Legion, the na
tion’s largest veterans organi
zation, will continue to fight
in favor of legislation to end
VA’s “30-year” regulation.
Indeed, because the laten
cy of respiratory cancers is
unpredictable, the chairman
of the April IOM study
agrees with The American
Legion, opposing a provision
that requires veterans suffer
ing from respiratory cancers
to prove that their condition
arose within 30 years of their
most recent Agent Orange
exposure.