New York, NY,
August 11, 2010 (PRWeb.com via COMTEX) —

Most Americans fear blindness more than getting heart disease, the primary
killer of both men and women in the United States, according to the findings
of the “Eye on Eyesight” survey.

The “Eye on Eyesight” survey confirms that a significant fear exists when it comes to losing one’s eyesight, as 60 percent of Americans say they are more frightened by the prospect of going blind than of getting heart disease. The survey was conducted by Surge Research Inc. on behalf of Choice Magazine Listening, a nonprofit organization which produces and distributes audio anthologies of
magazine articles, stories, and poetry, professionally narrated and free of
charge for the visually impaired and physically disabled.

“Many of us take our vision for granted. The thought of losing abilities that are basic to us, including important day-to-day functions like reading,
creates tremendous fear,” said Sondra Mochson, Editor in Chief of Choice Magazine
Listening. “Although we hope you’ll never need our free service, we do fill a crucial need by providing access to entertaining, informative, and
thought-provoking literature for people who have difficulty reading due to
vision loss or other factors.”

The survey shows that the fear of losing one’s eyesight is nearly double that of getting heart disease
(63% vs. 37%) for Americans between ages 50 and 64, a group that is at the
highest risk not only for heart disease, but also for conditions that can cause
visual disability such as diabetes and macular degeneration.

According to the survey, 79 percent of Americans also say that other than their own death or the death of a loved one, losing one’s eyesight is the
“worst thing that could happen to me,” clearly positioning vision as one of the most important elements of one’s life, if not the most important.

“Heart disease awareness campaigns touch almost every American, from educating the public about good and bad cholesterol,
proper exercise regimens, and healthy diets, to pharmaceutical companies trying to market their cholesterol or high blood pressure medications,” said
Andrew Edwards, Chief Executive Officer of Surge Research Inc. “For many years the Centers for Disease Control
has declared heart disease as the number-one killer in America. Yet despite all this awareness, this survey implies a greater concern with quality of
life than with a severe medical condition that kills one person every 34 seconds.”

The “Eye on Eyesight” survey was conducted by Surge Research Inc. from July 26 to 28, 2010 using an invitation e-mail and online survey. This survey
measured the opinions of 1,050 American adults ages 18-64 and has a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points at the 95% incidence level.

About Choice Magazine Listening Choice Magazine

Listening(www.choicemagazinelistening.org) is a free audio anthology for a
special audience of blind, visually impaired, physically disabled, or dyslexic subscribers. CML was created in
1962 by the nonprofit Lucerna Fund to offer the best of contemporary
magazine writing, completely without charge, to adults unable to read standard print.

About Surge Research Inc.

Surge Research Inc. (www.surgeresearch.com) is a
leading global marketing research firm providing qualitative and quantitative
research expertise and capabilities extending across all areas of marketing, communications, advertising and business. Surge Research offers multifaceted
market research services, including omnibus surveys, public relations
surveys, focus groups, competitive intelligence, customer satisfaction
surveys, social media and social networking analysis, employee surveys, in-depth interviews,
tracking studies and advertising research.

For more information about the “Eye on Eyesight” survey or Choice Magazine
Listening, please call Paul Rabin, Public Information Consultant at Choice Magazine
Listening, 516-503-0271 or Andrew Edwards, Chief Executive Officer at Surge
Research Inc. at 646-206-9017.

Reproduced from http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/resrq_americans-fear-blindness-more-than-heart-disease-survey-finds-1103294.html