It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, October 20, 2025
Colombia pulls ambassador from Washington as Trump threatens tariffs
“Colombian President Gustavo Petro is an illegal drug dealer,” Trump stated, adding that from now on Colombia would receive no payments or subsidies from the US.
By Cynthia Michelle Aranguren Hernández in BogotaOctober 20, 2025
Colombia recalled Ambassador Daniel García Peña from Washington on October 20 after President Donald Trump branded President Gustavo Petro an "illegal drug leader" and pledged to halt all financial assistance whilst threatening fresh tariffs against the Andean nation.
The escalating confrontation centres on US military strikes in Caribbean waters near Venezuela that have killed at least 32 people across seven operations since early September. Trump stated on October 19 that Colombia would forfeit all "payments and subsidies," accusing Petro of enabling cocaine production despite receiving $740mn (COP2.9 trillion) annually—the highest in South America—with $370mn (COP1.45 trillion) designated for counter-narcotics programmes, according to US government figures.
Colombia currently faces a 10% baseline levy on exports to the United States. But Trump now promises "major tariffs," to be announced on October 21, that could significantly escalate trade barriers. The threat carries substantial economic weight as the US represents Colombia's largest export market, absorbing 26% of Colombian goods valued at approximately $16bn annually. Trade analysts warn higher tariffs could devastate Colombia's manufacturing, agriculture, and flower industries whilst further straining bilateral relations already at their lowest point in decades.
Defence Minister Pedro Sánchez rejected Trump's characterisation, stressing Colombia "has used all its capability and also lost women and men fighting drug trafficking." The Foreign Ministry condemned the remarks as undermining presidential dignity whilst constituting "a direct threat to national sovereignty by proposing an illegal intervention in Colombian territory," pledging to seek international legal recourse through multilateral bodies.
Petro vehemently challenged US assertions that the October 18 vessel strike targeted a National Liberation Army craft, insisting the boat belonged to "a humble family" and not to the armed rebel group. The Colombian leader accused Washington of murder, citing the September 16 death of fisherman Alejandro Carranza, whose disabled vessel displayed distress signals when attacked in territorial waters. "US government officials have committed murder and violated our sovereignty," Petro wrote on X, demanding prosecution before international courts.
The Trump administration has justified the attacks, largely off the Venezuelan coast, as national self-defence amid high US overdose deaths, though the surge has been driven primarily by fentanyl entering from Mexico rather than cocaine from South America. However, analysts increasingly believe the White House's real intent is to drive Venezuelan authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro from power.
Petro, who has supported Maduro against foreign intervention, went on to slam decades of US anti-drug policy as a pretext for regional control, claiming it has caused 1mn Latin American deaths. He said the ultimate aim was "taking the resources of their American siblings," in an apparent reference to Venezuelan oil.
Tensions further ramped up on October 18 when protesters assaulted the US Embassy in Bogotá with bows, arrows, and incendiary devices, injuring four police officers. The demonstrators, affiliated with the Congreso de los Pueblos movement, denounced US policies regarding Venezuela and Palestine. Petro condemned the violence and ordered "maximum caution" to protect the diplomatic mission. "The problem is with Trump, not with US," he stated, adding that he respects American people and culture.
Since assuming office in 2022, the leftist leader has championed redirecting drug war strategy from forced crop eradication towards addressing underlying social factors. The approach has coincided with a 70% surge in coca cultivation to 253,000 hectares, according to Colombian government and UN estimates. Washington decertified Colombia as a drug-war ally in September, prompting Bogotá to suspend arms purchases from its primary military partner and halt an estimated $1.5bn in USAID funding for peace process implementation.
Eye prosthesis is the first to restore sight lost to macular degeneration
A tiny wireless chip implanted in the back of the eye and a pair of high-tech glasses have partially restored vision to people with an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration. In a clinical trial led by Stanford Medicine researchers and international collaborators, 27 out of 32 participants had regained the ability to read a year after receiving the device.
With digital enhancements enabled by the device, such as zoom and higher contrast, some participants could read with acuity equivalent to 20/42 vision.
The results of the trial will be published Oct. 20 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The device, called PRIMA, developed at Stanford Medicine, is the first eye prosthesis to restore functional sight to patients with incurable vision loss, giving them the ability to perceive shapes and patterns — also known as form vision.
“All previous attempts to provide vision with prosthetic devices resulted in basically light sensitivity, not really form vision,” said Daniel Palanker, PhD, a professor of ophthalmology and a co-senior author of the paper. “We are the first to provide form vision.”
The other senior author is José-Alain Sahel, MD, professor of ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The lead author is Frank Holz, MD, professor of ophthalmology at the University of Bonn in Germany.
The two-part device consists of a small camera, mounted on a pair of glasses, that captures images and projects them in real time via infrared light to a wireless chip in the eye. The chip converts the images into electrical stimulation, effectively taking the place of natural photoreceptors that have been damaged by disease.
PRIMA is the culmination of decades of development, prototypes, animal trials and a small first-in-human trial.
Palanker first imagined such a device 20 years ago, when he was working with ophthalmic lasers used to treat eye conditions. “I realized we should use the fact that the eye is transparent and deliver information by light,” he said.
“The device we imagined in 2005 now works in patients remarkably well.”
Replacing lost photoreceptors
Participants in the new trial had an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, known as geographic atrophy, that gradually erodes central vision. Over 5 million people globally are affected by the condition, and it is the most common cause of irreversible blindness among the elderly.
Macular degeneration destroys light-sensitive photoreceptors in the center of the retina, the thin neural tissue in the back of the eye that converts light into electrical signals that then travel to the brain. But most patients retain some photoreceptor cells that allow peripheral vision as well as the retinal neurons that relay information from photoreceptors.
The new device takes advantage of what is preserved.
The 2-by-2-millimeter chip that receives images is implanted in the part of the retina where photoreceptors have been lost. The chip is sensitive to infrared light projected from the glasses, unlike real photoreceptors that respond only to visible light.
“The projection is done by infrared because we want to make sure it’s invisible to the remaining photoreceptors outside the implant,” Palanker said.
The design means patients can use their natural peripheral vision along with the prosthetic central vision, which helps with orientation and navigation.
“The fact that they see simultaneously prosthetic and peripheral vision is important because they can merge and use vision to its fullest,” Palanker said.
Because the chip is photovoltaic, meaning it needs only light to generate electric current, it can operate wirelessly and be implanted under the retina. Previous eye prostheses required an external power source and a cable running out of the eye.
Reading again
The new trial included 38 patients older than 60 who had geographic atrophy due to age-related macular degeneration and worse than 20/320 vision in at least one eye.
Four to five weeks after implantation of the chip in one eye, patients began using the glasses. Though some patients could make out patterns immediately, all patients’ visual acuity improved over months of training.
“It may take several months of training to reach top performance — which is similar to what cochlear implants require to master prosthetic hearing,” Palanker said.
Of the 32 patients who completed the one-year trial, 27 could read and 26 demonstrated clinically meaningful improvement in visual acuity, which was defined as the ability to read at least two additional lines on a standard eye chart. On average, participants’ visual acuity improved by 5 lines; one improved by 12 lines.
The participants used the prosthesis in their daily lives to read books, food labels and subway signs. The glasses allowed them to adjust contrast and brightness and magnify up to 12 times. Two-thirds reported medium to high user satisfaction with the device.
Nineteen participants experienced side effects, including ocular hypertension (high pressure in the eye), tears in the peripheral retina and subretinal hemorrhage (blood collecting under the retina). None were life-threatening, and almost all resolved within two months.
Future visions
For now, the PRIMA device provides only black-and-white vision, with no shades in between, but Palanker is developing software that will soon enable the full range of grayscale.
“Number one on the patients’ wish list is reading, but number two, very close behind, is face recognition,” he said. “And face recognition requires grayscale.”
He is also engineering chips that will offer higher resolution vision. Resolution is limited by the size of pixels on the chip. Currently, the pixels are 100 microns wide, with 378 pixels on each chip. The new version, already tested in rats, may have pixels as small as 20 microns wide, with 10,000 pixels on each chip.
Palanker also wants to test the device for other types of blindness caused by lost photoreceptors.
“This is the first version of the chip, and resolution is relatively low,” he said. “The next generation of the chip, with smaller pixels, will have better resolution and be paired with sleeker-looking glasses.”
A chip with 20-micron pixels could give a patient 20/80 vision, Palanker said. “But with electronic zoom, they could get close to 20/20.”
Researchers from the University of Bonn, Germany; Hôpital Fondation A. de Rothschild, France; Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London; Ludwigshafen Academic Teaching Hospital; University of Rome Tor Vergata; Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, University of Lübeck; L’Hôpital Universitaire de la Croix-Rousse and Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1; Azienda Ospedaliera San Giovanni Addolorata; Centre Monticelli Paradis and L’Université d’Aix-Marseille; Intercommunal Hospital of Créteil and Henri Mondor Hospital; Knappschaft Hospital Saar; Nantes University; University Eye Hospital Tübingen; University of Münster Medical Center; Bordeaux University Hospital; Hôpital National des 15-20; Erasmus University Medical Center; University of Ulm; Science Corp.; University of California, San Francisco; University of Washington; University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; and Sorbonne Université contributed to the study.
The study was supported by funding from Science Corp., the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Moorfields Eye Hospital National Health Service Foundation Trust, and University College London Institute of Ophthalmology.
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About Stanford Medicine
Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu.
After being treated with an electronic eye implant paired with augmented-reality glasses, people with sight loss have recovered reading vision, reports a trial involving a UCL (University College London) and Moorfields Eye Hospital clinical researcher.
The results of the European clinical trial, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, showed 84% of participants were able to read letters, numbers and words using prosthetic vision through an eye that had previously lost its sight due to the untreatable progressive eye condition, geographic atrophy with dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Those treated with the device could also read, on average, five lines of a vision chart; some participants could not even see the chart before their surgery.
The trial, with 38 patients in 17 hospital sites across five countries, was testing a pioneering device called PRIMA, with Moorfields Eye Hospital being the sole UK site. All patients had lost complete sight in their eye before receiving the implant.
Dry AMD is a slow deterioration of the cells of the macula over many years, as the light-sensitive retinal cells die off. For most people with dry AMD, they can experience a slight loss of central vision. Through a process known as geographic atrophy (GA), it can progress to full sight loss in the eye, as the cells die and the central macula melts away. There is currently no treatment for GA, which affects 5 million people globally. All participants in this trial had lost the central sight of the eye being tested, leaving only limited peripheral vision.
This revolutionary new implant is the first ever device to enable people to read letters, numbers and words through an eye that had lost its sight.
Mr Mahi Muqit, associate professor in the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and senior vitreoretinal consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital, who led the UK arm of the trial, said: “In the history of artificial vision, this represents a new era. Blind patients are actually able to have meaningful central vision restoration, which has never been done before.
“Getting back the ability to read is a major improvement in their quality of life, lifts their mood and helps to restore their confidence and independence. The PRIMA chip operation can safely be performed by any trained vitreoretinal surgeon in under two hours - that is key for allowing all blind patients to have access to this new medical therapy for GA in dry AMD.”
The procedure involves a vitrectomy, where the eye’s vitreous jelly is removed from between the lens and the retina, and the surgeon inserts the ultra-thin microchip, which is shaped like a SIM card and just 2mm x 2mm. This is inserted under the centre of a patient’s retina, by creating a trapdoor into which the chip is posted. The patient uses augmented-reality glasses, containing a video camera that is connected to a small computer, with a zoom feature, attached to their waistband.
Around a month or so after the operation, once the eye has settled, the new chip is activated. The video camera in the glasses projects the visual scene as an infra-red beam directly across the chip to activate the device. Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms through the pocket computer process this information, which is then converted into an electrical signal. This signal passes through the retinal and optical nerve cells into the brain, where it is interpreted as vision. The patient uses their glasses to focus and scan across the main object in the projected image from the video camera, using the zoom feature to enlarge the text. Each patient goes through an intensive rehabilitation programme over several months to learn to interpret these signals and start reading again.
No significant decline in existing peripheral vison was observed in trial participants.
These findings pave the way for seeking approval to market this new device.
Sheila Irvine, one of Moorfields’ patients on the trial who was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration, said: “I wanted to take part in research to help future generations, and my optician suggested I get in touch with Moorfields. Before receiving the implant, it was like having two black discs in my eyes, with the outside distorted.
“I was an avid bookworm, and I wanted that back. I was nervous, excited, all those things. There was no pain during the operation, but you’re still aware of what’s happening. It’s a new way of looking through your eyes, and it was dead exciting when I began seeing a letter. It’s not simple, learning to read again, but the more hours I put in, the more I pick up.
“The team at Moorfields has given me challenges, like ‘Look at your prescription’, which is always tiny. I like stretching myself, trying to look at the little writing on tins, doing crosswords.
“It’s made a big difference. Reading takes you into another world, I’m definitely more optimistic now.”
The global trial was led by Dr Frank Holz of the University of Bonn, with participants from the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
The PRIMA System device used in this operation is being developed by Science Corporation (science.xyz), which develops brain-computer interfaces and neural engineering.
More about the device:
The device is a novel wireless subretinal photovoltaic implant paired with specialised glasses that project near-infrared light to the implant, which acts like a miniature solar panel.
It is 30 micrometres/microns (0.03mm) thick, about half the thickness of a human hair.
A zoom feature gives patients the ability to magnify letters. It is implanted in the subretinal layer, under the retinal cells that have died. Until the glasses and waistband computer are turned on, the implant has no visual stimulus or signal to pass through to the brain.
In addition to practicing their reading and attending regular training, patients on the trial were encouraged to explore ways of using the device. Sheila chose to learn to do puzzles and crosswords while one of the French patients used them to help navigate the Paris Metro – both tasks being more complex than reading alone.
Further quotes from Mr Mahi Muqit, UCL and Moorfields clinical researcher:
“My feeling is that the door is open for medical devices in this area, because there is no treatment currently licenced for dry AMD – it doesn’t exist.
“I think it’s something that, in future, could be used to treat multiple eye conditions.
“The rehabilitation process is key to these devices. It’s not like you’re popping a chip in the eye and then you can see again. You need to learn to use this type of vision.
“These are elderly patients who were no longer able to read, write or recognise faces due to lost vision. They couldn’t even see the vision chart before. They’ve gone from being in darkness to being able to start using their vision again, and studies have shown that reading is one of the things patients with progressive vision loss miss most.”
PITTSBURGH, October 20, 2025 – A wireless retinal implant can restore central vision in patients with advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to clinical trial results published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Advanced atrophic AMD, also known as geographic atrophy (GA), is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in older adults, affecting more than 5 million people worldwide.
Of the 32 participants who completed 12 months of follow-up, 26 (81%) achieved clinically meaningful improvements in visual acuity, and 27 participants (84%) reported using prosthetic vision at home for reading numbers or words. On average, participants improved by 25 letters — about five lines — on a standard eye chart when using the device. 81% of participants gained 10 or more letters.
“It’s the first time that any attempt at vision restoration has achieved such results in a large number of patients,” said Sahel, senior author of the study and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “More than 80% of the patients were able to read letters and words, and some of them are reading pages in a book. This is really something we couldn’t have dreamt of when we started on this journey, together with Daniel Palanker, 15 years ago.”
As AMD progresses, the center of vision becomes increasingly blurry due to the irreversible damage to the light-sensing cells in the central part of the retina. In a healthy retina, those cells capture ambient light from the environment and transform it into pulses of electricity, which are then sent to nerve cells lining the back of the eye and, eventually, to the brain through the optic nerve.
The PRIMA system, originally designed by Palanker, replaces these lost photoreceptors with a 2×2 mm wireless implant that converts light into electrical signals to stimulate remaining retinal cells. A camera mounted on specialized glasses captures images and projects them onto the implant using invisible near-infrared light. The implant then converts the light into electrical pulses, restoring the flow of visual information to the brain. Patients can adjust zoom and contrast settings to enhance functional vision.
The PRIMAvera trial enrolled 38 participants aged 60 and older at 17 sites across five European countries: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
After one year of using the system, all procedure-related adverse events had subsided, and the majority of participants showed significant improvement in their ability to read letters on the eye chart. One participant improved by as many as 59 letters, or 12 lines.
“While we can’t yet restore full 20/20 vision with the implant alone, at UPMC we are investigating methods that could further improve people’s quality of life and take them above the threshold for legal blindness,” Sahel said.
Based on the results of the new study, the device manufacturer, Science Corporation, has applied for clinical use authorization in Europe and the United States. UPMC was the first U.S. center to implant the PRIMA device in 2020 in a study led by associate professor of ophthalmology Joseph Martel, M.D.
Other authors of the study include investigators at The University of Bonn; The Adolphe de Rothschild Foundation Hospital and The 15-20 National Eye Hospital, Paris; Moorfields Eye Hospital, London; and University of Rome Tor Vergata, among others.
The study was financed by Science Corporation, Alameda, Calif., (previously Pixium Vision SA, Paris, France).
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About the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
As one of the nation’s leading academic centers for biomedical research, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine integrates advanced technology with basic science across a broad range of disciplines in a continuous quest to harness the power of new knowledge and improve the human condition. Driven mainly by the School of Medicine and its affiliates, Pitt has ranked among the top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health since 1998. In rankings released by the National Science Foundation, Pitt is in the upper echelon of all American universities in total federal science and engineering research and development support.
Likewise, the School of Medicine is equally committed to advancing the quality and strength of its medical and graduate education programs, for which it is recognized as an innovative leader, and to training highly skilled, compassionate clinicians and creative scientists well-equipped to engage in world-class research. The School of Medicine is the academic partner of UPMC, which has collaborated with the University to raise the standard of medical excellence in Pittsburgh and to position health care as a driving force behind the region’s economy. For more information about the School of Medicine, see www.medschool.pitt.edu.
About UPMC
UPMC is a world-renowned, nonprofit health care provider and insurer committed to delivering exceptional, people-centered care and community services. Headquartered in Pittsburgh and affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, UPMC is shaping the future of health through clinical and technological innovation, research, and education. Dedicated to advancing the well-being of our diverse communities, we provide nearly $2 billion annually in community benefits, more than any other health system in Pennsylvania. Our 100,000 employees — including more than 5,000 physicians — care for patients across more than 40 hospitals and 800 outpatient sites in Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland, as well as overseas. UPMC Insurance Services covers more than 4 million members, providing affordable, high-quality, value-based care. To learn more, visit UPMC.com.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) causes progressive vision loss in many elderly people, and no treatment is available for the so-called atrophic form of the disease. A neurostimulation system called Prima, including a subretinal implant, could change all that. The results of a clinical trial involving Inserm, Sorbonne University and CNRS - via the Institut de la vision -, the Hôpital Fondation Adolphe de Rothschild and the Hôpital national des 15-20 show that it partially restored sight in over 80% of participants with AMD, who recovered their ability to read letters, numbers and words. The results are published in the New England journal of medicine.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the world's leading cause of blindness. It generally occurs after the age of 60. It is characterized by the destruction of the macula, the central part of the retina responsible for fine, detailed vision - the kind that enables us to read or recognize faces - while peripheral vision is preserved. There are two forms of AMD. Atrophic AMD is characterized by the progressive disappearance of the photoreceptor cells that capture light and transmit images to the brain, leading to the irreversible loss of central vision.
To date, there is no treatment for advanced atrophic AMD, but an international team involving the Institut de la vision (Inserm/CNRS/Sorbonne Université), the Fondation Adolphe de Rothschild, the Hôpital national des 15-20, Stanford University and Science Corporation, has developed a neurostimulation system designed to restore vision in these patients. The device has already been tested in animals, and an initial clinical study at the Rothschild Foundation Hospital and 15-20, involving five patients, validated its suitability for human use. This time, the team has published efficacy and safety results for a larger number of patients at several European sites.
The Prima System: how does it work?
The Prima system, designed by Daniel Palanker at Stanford University, bypasses dead photoreceptor cells by transforming light in the residual retina into electrical signals that are transmitted to the brain. It consists of a subretinal implant and a pair of augmented-reality glasses. In concrete terms, the glasses are equipped with a miniature camera that captures surrounding images and transmits the video stream to a handheld computer. An algorithm enhances the images, magnifying them up to twelve times, increasing contrast and brightness, and then converts the video stream into infrared beams, projected in real time onto an implant previously grafted under the retina. The implant is designed to replace dead photoreceptor cells; it picks up the infrared signal and excites nearby nerve cells to send a message to the brain. The implant takes the form of a 2 mm x 2 mm, 30-micron-thick photovoltaic microchip comprising 378 electrodes. It operates wirelessly: it is the energy supplied by the infrared beam that activates the individual electrodes.
This new clinical study included 38 patients with atrophic AMD, recruited from 17 centers in five European countries, including several French sites. The average age of the patients was 78.9 years, with severely impaired vision. Their vision was assessed using standardized charts, i.e. the lines of letters found in any ophthalmologist's office. To be included in the clinical trial, the result of this test had to be a logMAR score ≥ 1.2 for at least one of the two eyes, i.e. the virtual impossibility of reading the letters displayed.
Efficacy and safety
All participants received retinal implants, and their vision was assessed six and then twelve months after surgery. The primary efficacy endpoint set by the investigators was the proportion of participants with an improvement in visual acuity of 0.2 logMAR or more. A total of 32 people completed the study. Of these, 81% reached this threshold of improvement, reading at least 10 more letters in the vision chart after one year when wearing Prima than when wearing their natural vision, and with no change in peripheral vision. And 78% had a 0.3 logMAR improvement and read at least 15 more letters with the glasses. The maximum benefit was a gain of 1.18 logMAR; the patient was able to read 59 more letters. At one year, 84.4% of participants reported being able to read letters, numbers and words at home.
This trial was also designed to assess the adverse effects induced by this device and its implantation. A total of 26 serious events were observed in 19 participants, all of which had been anticipated in the risk analysis. Most were ocular hypertension, but there were also retinal detachments, holes in the macula and subretinal hemorrhages. The vast majority of cases occurred within the first two months, and 95% were rapidly resolved, either spontaneously or by medical intervention. Tolerance was considered good. Further follow-up is planned up to 36 months.
“The benefits far outweighed the adverse effects,” concludes José-Alain Sahel, senior author of this article and an international researcher affiliated with Inserm, the Institut de la vision (CNRS/Inserm/Sorbonne Université), the Hôpital Fondation Adolphe de Rothschild; the Hôpital national des 15-20; Sorbonne Université, Paris; and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, USA. “Until now, other types of subretinal implants had been developed, with far less benefit. This is the first time that a system has enabled patients who have lost their central vision to read words and even sentences again, while preserving their peripheral vision", he concludes.
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