VICE

This week on "Vice":

The amazing new progress in restoring sight to the blind.

I think I saw something flash.

It's really, really weird.

That's okay, don't worry.

Would you advise someone to have that surgery?

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend it.

It can make you feel crazy.

And then, big business is taking over the marijuana industry.

It's so enormous. I can't even see the edges of the room.

It's the biggest tsunami ever to hit the world, in my lifetime, of money!

Modern medicine has made incredible advances

in restoring eyesight, thanks to cutting-edge technology

and a revolution in cost-efficient materials.

And that could mean a total transformation

for millions of visually impaired people desperate to see again.

Doctor: The white, cloudy, substance you're seeing

is the cataract, which is a cloudy lens,

so I'm just very gently teasing the lens until it's free,

and now we're going to remove it from the eye.

Yeung: Ooh, that's it?

That is the cataract, and it is gone.

That's incredible that you can just get rid of it in a matter of seconds.

Stage one is getting the cataract out.

Stage two is getting the new lens in.

And I put it in the exact same place where the cataract was.

So no stitches needed, and I'm done.

Yeung: Wow. That was incredibly quick.

Very quick. That was insane.

Onto the next one.

Around 19 million people in the world are blind because of cataracts,

and that number is disproportionately high in developing countries,

which is why we're in Ethiopia.

Traditionally, if you become blind in a country like this,

then that's pretty much it, you're blind for life.

But we're here to see an intervention, which is hoping to change all that.

Dr. Matt Oliva is part of the Himalayan Cataract Project,

an NGO working tirelessly to eradicate blindness in developing countries.

Blindness in Ethiopia is a death sentence, it really is.

And it's a social problem,

it's a human suffering problem,

and it's an economic problem.

Oliva: All the supplies for one case that we need cost under $20.

While I've been working here,

the staff has been getting the next patient ready,

and it's back and forth, back and forth all day long.

Yeung: For each eye, the surgery can be as fast as five minutes.

How many surgeries are you actually able to do every day?

Probably do about 70 today.

Yeung: And Dr. Oliva is just one

of four doctors operating on 700 patients

over the course of a week.

The speed at which these guys are working is insane.

It's almost like a factory line.

The recovery time is quick as well, less than 24 hours.

This is the best moment of every morning,

is getting ready to take the patches off

and see all our hard work from yesterday.

Whoa, these are--

This is everyone who had surgery yesterday?

Oliva: These are all 200 people.

Yeung: What do you think those 200 or so patients are going through

when you first take off those bandages?

Oliva: I think it's overwhelming for most patients.

Some of these people have been blind 10 years,

sometimes even 15 years,

so there's sort of an adaptation problem,

and you can see it in their faces,

where there is sort of a slow reestablishment

of the neural pathways in the brain.

This is literally one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

In, like, a matter of seconds those bandages come off

and their entire lives are completely transformed.

Yeung: This cataract surgery is now widely available

in the developing world

because of a revolution in low cost materials.

And it's just one of a wave of promising new advances in restoring sight.

And that could mean radical change for people like Anthony Andreottola.

Anthony is an addiction counselor in Boston.

A progressive condition called retinitis pigmentosa

has left him completely blind.

It was in my late 30s when I lost the ability to recognize faces.

I considered that when I crossed the line of being blind, yeah.

And how did it impact, like, everyday life?

Being independent, traveling is a real big deal.

I go back and forth to work by myself,

and, uh, that sometimes can be a challenge.

You see some blind people with a cane,

they're like ballerinas going down the street.

I'm not. I go kind of slow.

Oh, I'm so sorry, I did not see you.

It's okay. That's all right. I'm so sorry.

No problem.

These hybrid cars now, they're much quieter.

They can really sneak up on a blind person crossing the street.

But it's-- it's just part of life.

Yeung: A part of life that he's hoping will soon change

because in a few days, Anthony will be one of the first few hundred patients

to receive the Argus II, the first retinal implant approved by the FDA.

We met with Dr. Robert Greenberg, chairman of Second Sight,

which manufactures the device.

The Argus II is available for a disease called retinitis pigmentosa.

It's a small pill-sized device that goes in and around the eye,

coupled with a pair of glasses that have a video camera.

So here we've got the camera that's picking up the signal in front of the patient.

That signal is going to the processor that you have in your hands.

That processed signal is going up to the antenna

and the signal is getting sent wirelessly to the implant in and around the eye.

The retina is like a multi-layered cake,

and in the retinitis pigmentosa patients,

the bottom layer of the cake, those photoreceptors are dead.

But the upper layer of the cake and the cable going back to the brain are intact.

And we're essentially replacing those photoreceptors.

To the brain, this signal is coming from the retina as far as it knows.

It's like the screen has broken,

but the computer inside is still working.

Exactly. The best description of what they see

is something like a crude black and white television.

Blurry levels of gray,

but it's enough for people to get around.

It's enough for people to see a loved one,

and it's life-changing for a lot of folks.

Yeung: We went with Anthony to Johns Hopkins Hospital

where he had the device implanted.

So they've just put him to sleep, so the surgery can begin.

Man: Okay. We're ready for the device.

This is what goes inside the eye.

Yeung: Dr. Handa's just attaching the actual device now,

and then wrapping it around with a sort of belt to keep it in place.

Those little dots there are the 60 electrodes? Handa: Correct.

It's incredible that what looks like this tiny little piece of plastic

could possibly give the gift of sight back to someone's eye.

Handa: So now I'm putting it into the eye.

Yeung: Wow, so you can actually see the device going in.

All right. Everything good?

Yeah. So, when will you turn the device on?

Probably in about a month or so.

Then he has to learn how to see.

Mm-hmm.

Yeung: But learning to see will be a challenge.

The Argus II is only a second-generation technology,

and at this early stage the images it transmits are rudimentary.

Whoa. Okay.

So, this is what people with Argus II see?

Dr. Greenberg: Yes, this is our best approximation.

I can see black and white shapes.

That was my shoulder. This is your face.

Yup.

It really is a case of learning how to see

in a different way then, isn't it?

It is. It's learning how to see again.

And it's really crude vision.

Expectations are really important,

and one of the worst things that could happen would be

if a patient went into the surgery expecting to see perfectly when they came out,

and then they're likely to be disappointed.

Yeung: A month later, Anthony returned to Johns Hopkins.

How are you feeling about getting this device turned on?

I guess I'm hoping not to be disappointed.

But I guess any improvement's gonna be...

it's gonna be meaningful.

Yeung: The first step for Anthony is testing and calibrating

the strength of the 60 individual electrodes in his implant.

Ready? Yeah.

Here we go.

I think I saw something, like, flash.

Okay. Here's another one.

Yeah, I saw something else then, too.

That's okay, don't worry.

Does it feel weird?

It's like this eye,

but I feel like I see it over here.

It's really, really weird.

Yeung: After a night's rest, Anthony returned with his daughter

to finally have the device fully powered on.

I think we're ready.

What do you see?

I see stuff, like...

There, you're picking up Dr. Handa.

This is a white coat.

Something going like this.

So, that's easier.

Yeah. (laughing)

What's up, kid? Nothing.

I just got an image of you right over here.

Look up and tell me if you can see the ceiling lights.

Right there.

Okay, now keep looking,

and see if you can pick up more of the ceiling lights.

Right there.

Yeah, there's another one, right.

Do you feel like it could be useful?

Is it like, the greatest thing in the world,

to have, you know, this limited vision?

I can't say yet,

but I think it's better than not having it at all.

Yeung: Although the Argus II shows promise for patients like Anthony