A retired U.S. Food and Drug Administration adviser says LASIK eye surgery should be removed from the market.
Morris Waxler voted to approve to treatment, but now wishes he hadn’t, CBS News reports. He has re-examined the data.
“Essentially we ignored the data on vision distortions that persisted for years,” he told CBS.
His analysis suggests that 10 percent to 30 percent of patients experience complications. He asked the FDA in 2011 to issue a voluntary recall of the treatment, but the FDA declined to do so.
The FDA recently told CBS that it “has not found any new safety concerns associated with LASIK devices.”
CBS News quoted several patients saying they’d been harmed by LASIK.
Abraham Rutner, for example, said that he had double vision and that “around the lights [was] like having starbursts.” He notes, however, that his vision is improved by approximately 90 percent.
Experts say pre-surgical screening is crucial to avoiding LASIK complications.
The key lies in “knowing who to operate on and who not to operate on and there are people who really should not have this procedure,” Dr. Jules Winokur told CBS News.
The FDA has issued an advisory on risks and how to find find the right doctor for LASIK.
Read more at CBS News