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Anyone for LASIK ? One for the conspiracy theorists

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  • Anyone for LASIK ? One for the conspiracy theorists

    And I am not ruling myself out as one of them (the conspiracy theorists that is.)
    Dr Perry Rosenthal has a relatively new website and foundation he has created to combat eye pain and promote a new way of looking at dry eye. The website is http://www.bostoneyepain.org/.

    On one of the pages of his site are his views on LASIK - http://www.bostoneyepain.org/my-personal-thoughts/.

    I don't think what he says here will surprise many people on the DEZ but some of it (about his articles questioning LASIK being refused publication in medical journals) is certainly disturbing.

    On another page of Dr Rosenthal's site there is a contribution from a researcher Roger Davis, PHD. - http://www.bostoneyepain.org/invited-contributions/. His conclusion is that in approving LASIK the FDA "ignored its own (negative) data". It also defined permanent dry eye like pain that was a consequence of a significant number of LASIKs as a "side effect" (and therefore temporary) rather than the much more serious definition of "complication". The latter definition may have meant LASIK would not have been approved.

    But what I think is the most damning thing is this - Roger Davis states that EyeWorld magazine (a publication for eyecare practioners) made the following statement in an article about LASIK -
    "We are only starting to ride the enormous growth curve of LASIK in this country.

    There will be more than enough surgeries for everyone to benefit if we keep our heads by sharing information openly and honestly and by resisting the temptation to criticize the work of our colleagues when we are offering a second opinion to a patient with a suboptimal result. Who was it who said, “When the tide comes in, all the boats in the harbor go up?”

    (Unfortunately, Roger Davis does not properly reference this quote.)

    So the magazine is asking doctors to resist criticising suboptimal LASIK results. Does this translate as a cover-up?

  • #2
    It sure stinks of a coverup to me... lots of money to be made from LASIK, and I think there are many who will do whatever it takes to milk it for all it's worth. It reminds me of everything I've ever heard about the tobacco industry, back before it came out that smoking was harmful to your health - the tobacco industry was very aggressive about covering up the harmful effects of smoking - the LASIK industry is doing the exact same damned thing.

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    • #3
      How about this for vomit material RE Lasik I accidentally stumbled across:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg_4rdA5S2Y

      Even for someone who never had Lasik, the suggestion that dry eyes can be treated "easily in one minute" as this video states is extremely offensive.

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      • #4
        bostoneyepain.org was hacked

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        • #5
          I just noticed that it was hacked too. It was working fine yesterday. I have just sent an email to Dr Rosenthal letting him know. Hopefully he can get it fixed soon.

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          • #6
            What kind of loser hacks a website that's there to help people with medical issues? Good grief. Hope the website is up and running again soon!

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            • #7
              Sadly, the parallels with the cigarette industry doesn't really stop with the suppression of evidence showing its harmful effects.

              After all these years- and all the evidence linking tobacco with cancer- the tobacco companies are still there spreading their poison and making enormous profits on the back of the misery they inflict.

              Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I think that the same will apply to laser surgery: decades of denial followed by - if people are very lucky- more explicit warnings and a more honest approach to the risks. Even that will not happen without government legislation, self regulation simply won't be enough.

              Laser surgery is perfectly marketed to suit our times; an expensive and unnecessary instant fix for a relatively minor inconvenience, but one that can turn into an ordeal for many unfortunate people.

              I just wish I hadn't been one of the people who fell for their slick marketing and had done more research before I took the plunge. I don't think of myself as an uninformed person, I read around the subject extensively (or so I thought) and considered it for several years before I had the surgery. As it happens, it still wasn't enough and I wish I had discovered this website back in May. Perhaps I wouldn;t be in the mess I'm in now if I had. I am sure that there are a lot of people out there who give laser surgery very little thought at all.
              Last edited by Jovver; 27-Aug-2013, 03:54.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Jovver View Post
                Sadly, the parallels with the cigarette industry doesn't really stop with the suppression of evidence showing its harmful effects.

                After all these years- and all the evidence linking tobacco with cancer- the tobacco companies are still there spreading their poison and making enormous profits on the back of the misery they inflict.

                Perhaps I'm being cynical, but I think that the same will apply to laser surgery: decades of denial followed by - if people are very lucky- more explicit warnings and a more honest approach to the risks. Even that will not happen without government legislation, self regulation simply won't be enough.
                Yes, I think you are totally right about this.

                Originally posted by Jovver View Post
                I just wish I hadn't been one of the people who fell for their slick marketing and had done more research before I took the plunge. I don't think of myself as an uninformed person, I read around the subject extensively (or so I thought) and considered it for several years before I had the surgery. As it happens, it still wasn't enough and I wish I had discovered this website back in May. Perhaps I wouldn;t be in the mess I'm in now if I had. I am sure that there are a lot of people out there who give laser surgery very little thought at all.
                As Dr. Rosenthal's experience with attempts at publishing papers documenting the downsides of LASIK shows, there isn't much in the way of good, concrete info out there to find - no-one will publish it. You could research for years, and you'd never find what you're looking for due to their unwillingness to publish it.

                And even if you HAD found this site, it would just be a bunch of random people on the internet, of unknown trustworthiness. Are they lying? Are they exaggerating? You could ask the esteemed LASIK surgeon, and odds are they'd tell you that you shouldn't research this stuff on the internet since the info you'll find is unreliable. They would reassure you that in the thousands (maybe 10's of thousands) of procedures they've performed, they've never seen any such horror stories happen to properly screened patients. Since YOU would be properly screened, they'd tell you that you have nothing to worry about.

                You might even post on this forum to ask if you should have LASIK, and some here might even lash out at you telling you what a fool you are to consider LASIK, and asking how dare you even ask us about this? You'd then think we are a bunch of crazy people, feel insulted, and be even less likely to consider our warnings.

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                • #9
                  You might even post on this forum to ask if you should have LASIK, and some here might even lash out at you telling you what a fool you are to consider LASIK, and asking how dare you even ask us about this? You'd then think we are a bunch of crazy people, feel insulted, and be even less likely to consider our warnings.[/QUOTE]

                  :sigh: You're right, I guess it's difficult to know who to trust, and very easy to blame yourself for falling for their smooth talk. It's also very easy to ignore good advice if it's not really what you want to hear...I guess the moral of this story (if there is one) is not to place your trust in people who's only motive is profit.

                  Anyway, I don't want to hijack this thread with my own sorry tale, I'm only 3 and a bit months post Lasek so I am still hopeful of some kind of a recovery.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by SAAG View Post
                    What kind of loser hacks a website that's there to help people with medical issues? Good grief. Hope the website is up and running again soon!
                    Maybe the hacker is not a loser, but a winner... I mean, people who profits from Lasik...

                    Just a conspiracy theory that came to my mind.

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                    • #11
                      The Boston EyePain website is back in business now.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Jovver View Post
                        :sigh: You're right, I guess it's difficult to know who to trust, and very easy to blame yourself for falling for their smooth talk. It's also very easy to ignore good advice if it's not really what you want to hear...I guess the moral of this story (if there is one) is not to place your trust in people who's only motive is profit.
                        Yeah, don't forget, we've been taught our whole lives to place our trust in doctors, everyone knows about the Hippocratic Oath and "Do no harm" that they swear to... it's no wonder that many of us turned off our BS detector at the office door - we didn't think we'd need it. Naive? In hindsight, yes. We'll be smarter about these things in future though

                        (And I'm not slamming all doctors, since there are obviously lots of really good ones out there too... just trying to say there are good and bad in every profession, and as many of us have learned, taking an oath to do no harm doesn't prevent some bad apples from getting into medicine)

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                        • #13
                          Really great the http://www.bostoneyepain.org/

                          I've learned more things about my condition reading it today.

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