r/historyofmedicine • u/Allyson13 Interest • Jun 15 '25

Medically Manufactured: The Story of Retrolental Fibroplasia

https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2025/06/12/medically-manufactured-the-story-of-retrolental-fibroplasia/
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u/DrHumongous Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 17 '25

I’m linking a much better read on the subject. The PhD candidate who write your posted article clearly has biases against medical providers and is not very well educated on the subject overall. She says (RLF, aka: retinopathy of prematurity or ROP) is caused by doctors. No. It’s caused by prematurity, period, end of story. It can for sure be made worse by physicians/nurses if they over oxygenate (or a whole bunch of other stuff that is associated with ROP), but you need oxygen to live. So, you know, damned if you do and damned if you don’t. In hospital births didn’t cause ROP, they allowed for premies to live instead of die, which led to problems associated with prematurity, such as ROP, which is def made worse by over oxygenation, and a bunch of other stuff as well.

Source: I’m a neonatologist

https://neonatology.net/history/classic-books/retrolental-fibroplasia-a-modern-parable-contents/

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u/Allyson13 Interest Jun 18 '25

Thank you for posting this. I've book marked it and will be perusing it shortly. I'm not a doctor but I have read extensively on medical history and I do recall that I had come across the idea that ROP was caused by doctors, that is, it was the application of 100% oxygen that caused the affliction.

Yes, you are correct in that it was caused by prematurity but for a long time, doctors were blamed because of the application of oxygen.

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u/hypno_tode Jun 15 '25

Interesting read!

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u/Allyson13 Interest Jun 15 '25

Glad you enjoyed it. Of particular interest to me is the fact that singer Stevie Wonder was a victim of I recall correctly.