Lasik surgery may carry more
risk than thought
NBC News February 8, 2001 ran an article on LASIK
surgery and the unknown dangers. The NBC report started with, "About
2.6 million Americans are expected to get LASIK surgery, the most common
form of laser eye correction, this year. Ads for it are everywhere. But
they seldom mention the side effects that strike tens of thousands of
patients a year."
Dr. Richard Braunstein of Columbia University says,
"doctors often don’t describe the dangers and patients don’t
listen." He goes on to say, “Patients who have a problem often
feel surprised they had a bad result from the surgery. It’s not a
risk-free event, no medical procedure is a risk-free event.”
According to the NBC report even the experts admit
they don’t know what the complication rate is from laser vision
correction. The best guess is 5 percent or less, but there have been no
big studies to try to find out.
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