I am writing to strongly encourage the adoption of the draft regulations allowing properly trained and certified Virginia optometrists to use lasers to perform certain approved ocular procedures.  Legislation that lead to these regulations was passed by the Virginia General Assembly and signed by the Governor over two years ago.  Since then, a regulatory process with the cooperation of ophthalmology has been underway to ensure that only trained and certified Virginia optometrists may perform these procedures.  The training and oversight is very rigorous by design.  To date, there are 12 states that allow in-office procedures by optometrists with over 146,000 performed to date.  Further, lasers have been used in the treatment of ocular conditions by optometrists since the 1990’s.  For these reasons, it is reasonable and prudent to approve the draft regulations as proposed.