[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10965-10966]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        DRY EYE AWARENESS MONTH

  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, in the spirit of the ``Decade of 
Vision,'' I am pleased to recognize July as Dry Eye Awareness Month. In 
2009, while serving in the House of Representatives, I was proud to 
sponsor the successfully passed H. Res. 366, which recognized the 40th 
anniversary of the National Eye Institute and designated 2010-2020 as 
the ``Decade of Vision.'' This resolution sought to bring awareness to 
our Nation's challenges in vision health, especially as our population 
ages and the incidence of chronic diseases that may cause vision 
impairment grows.
  Dry eye is one of these growing vision health challenges that affects 
more than 30 million people in the United States. It occurs when the 
eye does not produce tears properly or they are not of the correct 
consistency and evaporate too quickly. It can range from discomfort to 
a painful chronic and progressive condition that leads to blurred 
vision or even vision loss. Dry eye is one of the most frequent causes 
of patient visits to eyecare providers. It is a particularly burdensome 
issue for our brave soldiers who were engaged in Operation Enduring 
Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Veterans Administration 
reports that upwards of 70 percent of traumatic brain injury-exposed 
veterans have dry eye symptoms.
  Research supported by the National Institutes of Health and its 
National Eye Institute has improved our understanding of this 
condition. Dry eye can have many causes, including environmental 
exposure, side-effects from medications, eye surgery, eyelid disorders, 
immune system disorders, contact lens wear, cosmetic use, aesthetic

[[Page 10966]]

procedures, and an increasingly common cause: staring at computer or 
video screens for too long without blinking, which may have a 
disproportionate impact on our younger generations.
  I want to recognize an important educational opportunity during Dry 
Eye Awareness Month this year. The Tear Film & Ocular Surface Society's 
``Dry Eye Workshop II Report'' will be published in ``The Ocular 
Surface Journal,'' updating the definition of dry eye and addressing 
its greater impact on vision health--the first such reexamination since 
2007. Report highlights were presented at a July 12, 2017, 
congressional briefing, accompanied by a ``Test Your Tears'' screening 
and presentation of research posters.
  The vision community and its coalition partners are uniting to 
recognize this growing vision health problem, and I stand in support of 
these awareness and educational efforts.

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