IRS "Bows" to ODs. Or a Rose by Another Name Ain't a Rose

"Bending to AOA pressure, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced that it will no longer use a discriminatory reference to doctors of optometry in its annual tax guidance documents." That's the way the Ameircan Optometric Association boasted of the change in the "you-say-tomato-I-say-tomato" debate. The radical bureaucratic departure: IRS officials will refer to “eye doctors” as optomettherists and ophthalmologists. Prior to the change, the IRS asked patients and their tax preparers to obtain a certified statement from an “eye doctor or registered optometrist” in order to apply the higher standard deduction for blindness.