Washington: The crazy-sounding idea of being able to turn your brown eyes blue is actually a reality, with a procedure developed over two decades that uses a laser now in human testing.
Gregg Homer, who first came up with the idea some 20 years ago after a dermatologist used a laser to remove pigment spots from his skin, discovered a study that found a blue eye is beneath every brown eye.
Homer said that he went back to his dermatologist and asked “What would happen if you used this on an iris?” The dermatologist eventually joined his board of investigators, and now, almost 20 years later, the surgery is going through human testing in Costa Rica via Homer’s company called Stroma.
Homer added that the original idea, that the frequency of the green laser is such that it passes straight through the cornea and is only absorbed by dark color, makes it incredibly safe and incredibly differentiating.
So far there haven’t been any bad effects on the 37 people who’ve had the procedure, which takes a couple of weeks to reveal the blue eye underneath, but ophthalmologists have some concerns about potential long-term effects, primarily, at least in theory, glaucoma.
Homer noted that it’s going to be awhile before the procedure is available in the U.S., but he expects it’ll be available in other countries move quickly.
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