| Brent Hanson - LasikFraud.com 2005-02-03, 11:07 am |
| The Buffalo News
Buffalo News (New York)
January 22, 2005 Saturday
Refractive surgery started in the United States more than 25 years ago with
radial keratotomy and has since "evolved" to include procedures such as PRK
and LASIK. Since that time, millions of people have had refractive surgery,
which lessens the need for glasses or contact lenses.
A quick search on the Internet provides a host of sites containing tragic
stories of people whose vision was not improved but made worse, sometimes to
the point of complete disability. Other sites, such as PubMed, give access
to studies done by leading ophthalmologists.
The conclusions of these studies state that most patients' vision was
"improved." However, those same studies report complaints on problems with
night vision (halos and glare) ranging from 10 percent to 40 percent.
Separate studies raise serious safety concerns about driving ability due to
halos and glare in older drivers.
It seems odd that I could not find any studies relating glare and halos
caused by refractive surgery to driver safety. Considering the large number
of people who have had the surgery, the concern that there could be
thousands of drivers whose night vision could threaten the safety of others
is very real. This concern will increase as people who have had the surgery
age. Of course the other concern is the liability on your part if you have
had refractive surgery. In my opinion, this is litigation waiting to happen.
Tom Reilly
Fredonia
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