Rodger Kame; Expert on Contact Lenses

Rodger Kame, 61, a Los Angeles optometrist and expert on contact lenses. Kame was a Los Angeles native who was interned with other Japanese Americans in the Manzanar relocation camp during World War II. After the war, he attended University High School in West Los Angeles and Santa Monica City College. He graduated from the Southern California College of Optometry in 1962. Before he started his optometry practice, he served three years in the Air Force Reserve as an optometry officer at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Wash. He joined a Little Tokyo optometry practice in 1965, later establishing his own office, which he operated until he was diagnosed with cancer and forced to retire last year. In the late 1960s, he became a clinical investigator for the contact lens industry, conducting field studies to determine if changes to the cornea resulted from extended wear. Working for major companies such as Vistakon and Acuvue, he helped establish safety guidelines and identified side effects and complications of wearing disposable lenses in trials conducted in the 1980s and 1990s. A widely sought lecturer, he was on the faculty of the Southern California College of Optometry for 35 years. On July 11 in Los Angeles of cancer.