On October 20, 1996, I wrote:

I recommend that all references to Eye Clinics be worded to say "Eye-screening Clinic", which is the generic, non-partisan terminology. Anybody who advertises a "CERF" clinic is partisan to the confidential, closed eye registry. I think Clubs must preserve the right of not only those who prefer to withhold affected reports, but to give equal opportunity to those who want the right to register all evaluations in the full-disclosure GDC eye registry.

It is a useful exercise to educate members to understand the Poodle owners who pushed for an Open Eye Registry to make it possible to have an 'open-eye' approach to identify where were the normal animals with carrier genes.

The 3 PRA and 1Cataract case in BMD that are in the GDC now, should be enough to alert owners of this breed. Two of these 4 blind Berners died only last year. Although they were all diagnosed by 'CERF', none were ever sent in to be registered with them because there was no reason to pay for that service when it was known that no affected cases could be identified. When the GDC opened an eye registry, there was then a useful place to register these blind dogs.

Because of its charter, the CERF Registry can only tell us that they have had affected cases of BMD but cannot divulge the identity of the affected animal. This must be done in order to identify the parent carriers and know the %risk that other family members have of being carriers.

I appreciate you thinking about this subject................

Today, May 25, 2001 (5 and a half years later) I write:

There are now 8 cases of PRA and 6 cases of cataracts in the GDC (as well as a small handful of other less serious inherited eye diseases). 2 more PRA cases are expected to be registered this month.

How many more than 16 registered cases of blind dogs
will be enough to alert Berner owners that the time has come to take open control methods?

Owners of 30 parents now know that their dogs must be marked as obligate carriers that have unknowingly passed on blindness genes to half of their normal-looking puppies!! When 2 of trhese unkown carriers are bred together, 25%of their pups will be blind. Don't we owe them the support that would come from a strong campaign to screen large cross-sections of Berners and record the results where GDC can give us back records that help us avoid producing more blindness carrier stock?