by Sid Birns

At a weekly Thursday meeting of the Côte St. Luc Men’s Club, guest speaker Marc Renaud, Project Manager for glaucoma at the Information Centre & McGill Low Vision Laboratory at the Jewish General Hospital, explained the causes and consequences of Glaucoma and how to properly administer eye-drop medication. He stressed that testing for Glaucoma should be done on a regular basis.

After cataracts, Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide and the number one cause for irreversible vision loss. Up to 50% of people with Glaucoma in the industrialized world may not know they have it and are not receiving care. There may be as many as 409,000 people with Glaucoma in Canada. In the US, 2.2 million people are affected and, by the year 2020, 3.3 million will have it.

Prevalence rates depend on age, gender, ethnicity and type of Glaucoma. For instance, rates are three times higher among African Americans and Latinos.

Before the lecture, members of the Côte Saint-Luc Dramatic Society made a surprise visit to perform a “musical clip” from their upcoming show, the Broadway hit Hairspray, which tackles the issue of racial segregation in the United States in the 1960s.

“Hairspray is not only great entertainment with wonderful music and dancing, but it promotes ideas of justice and anti-discrimination that the City of Côte Saint-Luc holds dear,” said Councillor Mitchell Brownstein, who is also the show’s producer. Hairspray plays until June 14 at the Harold Greenspon Auditorium, 514-485-6800 X 2024.