AMDF was established in 1993, shortly after our founder, Chip Goehring, was diagnosed at the age of 39 with macular degeneration. He was told he was going to go blind, and yet found a dearth of information available to macular degeneration patients. AMDF was born out of Chip’s drive to find answers for the devastating diagnosis he had been given, and the empathy he immediately realized for others facing the same diagnosis and feeling alone.
As he says in his letter to AMD patients, “I know the shock of being told that I might go blind from a disease I’d never heard of. I know the dismay of being told there is little, if anything, that can be done.”
Today, almost every member of the core AMDF team has a personal connection to macular degeneration, or vision loss. These personal connections to vision loss drive our passion to help others on this path.