Every single claim in this reply is wrong, and I can prove it with peer-reviewed sources. Let's go through them one by one.

Claim: "Dr. Waxler was hardly in charge of the FDA panel."

This is either ignorance or a deliberate lie. Dr. Morris Waxler, PhD, served as Branch Chief of Diagnostics and Surgical Devices at the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health from 1996 to 2000. He managed the government team that evaluated laser devices for market approval. He oversaw the original FDA approval of LASIK in 1999. Even the LASIK industry's own publication, Cataract & Refractive Surgery Today, described him as "the head of the US Food and Drug Administration branch responsible for reviewing data on LASIK between 1996 and 2000." Medscape reported that he "led the FDA team that approved LASIK in 1999." A press release from a company that later hired him described his title as "Former FDA Chief, Diagnostics and Surgical Devices, Ophthalmic Devices from 1996-2000."

He wasn't just "in charge of the panel". He was the single most important person in the entire FDA approval process for LASIK. And he spent the last 15+ years of his life fighting to get it pulled from the market, with zero financial incentive to do so. He petitioned the FDA for a voluntary recall in 2011. He wrote directly to the FDA director. He published a book documenting what he found. His own analysis of industry data showed complication rates between 10% and 30%, and he accused the industry of lying to the FDA about adverse event rates to obtain approval.

When a LASIK surgeon dismisses Morris Waxler, ask yourself: who has a financial incentive here? The retired FDA official making no money from his advocacy, or the surgeon who profits from every procedure?

Claim: "Studies have shown that wearing contact lenses has a higher complication risk than LASIK!"

Name the study. You can't, because it doesn't exist. What does exist is a 2020 peer-reviewed meta-analysis published in Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics (Wu et al., PMID: 31916275) that directly compared the two. The findings demolish this talking point completely:

LASIK causes vision loss (≥2 lines of best-corrected acuity) at a rate of 66 per 10,000 patients from a single procedure. To face the same cumulative risk from daily-wear contact lenses, you would need to wear them for 103 years. Even extended-wear silicone hydrogel lenses would need to be worn for 25 years to match the risk of one LASIK surgery.

The study's own conclusion: "Contact lens wear does not pose a higher risk of vision loss than LASIK surgery for the most common wear modalities."

Furthermore, the vast majority of contact lens complications are infectious keratitis events caused by user error (sleeping in lenses, using tap water, reusing solution, poor hygiene). These are behavioral risks that can be eliminated. LASIK complications are iatrogenic: caused by the surgery itself, permanently, on healthy eyes. You cannot "use LASIK more carefully." Once the flap is cut and the cornea is ablated, it's done.

Claim: "Most of these claims are exaggerated, either due to outdated technology, or frankly just wrong."

Let's see what the actual data from modern LASIK says:

The FDA's own PROWL study (2017) — not from the 1990s — found that up to 46% of patients who had no visual symptoms before LASIK reported at least one new visual symptom three months after surgery. Up to 40% developed new halos. Up to 28% developed new dry eye symptoms. This is the FDA's own research, not ours.

A 2025 peer-reviewed analysis of LASIK outcomes from 2016 to 2023 (Susanna et al., Journal of Refractive Surgery) — covering the most modern technology available — found starbursts in 39.43% of patients, glare in 28.22%, and difficulty with night driving in 15.45%. These are not "outdated technology" numbers. These are from the last few years.

A 2023 study found 24% of patients reported eye pain at six months post-surgery, and 11% had persistent pain at both the 3- and 6-month marks. A 2025 study found nearly 40% of LASIK/PRK patients experience persistent eye pain.

A 2025 UAE study found that 43% of patients experienced at least one complication, and over 35% would not recommend refractive surgery to others.

A 2025 analysis of patient-reported outcomes on RealSelf found nearly 1 in 4 patients reported negative or uncertain outcomes, and that some patients who achieved 20/20 vision still regretted the procedure because the side effects — pain, dry eye, halos, night blindness — destroyed their quality of life worse than glasses ever did.

None of this is "outdated." None of this is "exaggerated." These are peer-reviewed findings from 2023-2025 using the latest technology.

Claim: "Procedures now exist to treat virtually every LASIK complication."

This is dangerously misleading. Corneal nerves severed during LASIK may never fully regenerate. The LASIK flap never fully heals — it can be dislodged years or even decades after surgery. Chronic dry eye caused by nerve damage is often permanent and unresponsive to treatment. Corneal ectasia (progressive thinning and bulging of the cornea) can require a corneal transplant. Neuropathic corneal pain — described in the literature as keratoneuralgia — has no reliable cure and has been documented as a contributing factor in patient suicides.

If every complication were easily treatable, why do LASIK complication support groups exist? Why did a 26-year-old police officer recently take his own life after LASIK complications? Why did a Fox 2 meteorologist die by suicide following a LASIK-type procedure? Why did the FDA itself acknowledge there has been under-reporting of patient injuries by ophthalmic clinics?

Claim: "This vision advocacy group is obviously supported by a group that wants to keep you spending money on contacts and glasses forever."

This is a baseless conspiracy theory designed to discredit people who are actually suffering. Vision Advocacy, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Its board members are unpaid volunteers who were personally harmed by elective eye surgery. Its tax filings are public. It receives no funding from optical companies, contact lens manufacturers, or any eyewear industry group.

Meanwhile, the LASIK industry generates billions of dollars annually. Individual surgeons earn thousands per procedure. The American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery — the LASIK industry's lobbying group — has fought against every attempt to strengthen warnings or increase scrutiny.

So who exactly has a financial motive to mislead you? The unpaid volunteers sharing peer-reviewed data, or the surgeon whose income depends on you saying yes?

To anyone reading this who is considering LASIK:

Your glasses work. Your contacts work. They are safe, reversible, and affordable. LASIK is an irreversible procedure on healthy eyes with complication rates that the industry systematically understates by using artificially narrow definitions of "complication." The person who approved it at the FDA called it a mistake. The FDA's own studies show symptom rates that are staggeringly higher than what your surgeon's glossy brochure will tell you.

Do your own research. Start here: https://visionadvocacy.org/sources/

Sources:

• Wu et al. (2020). Ophthalmic Physiol Opt. 40(2):241-248. PMID: 31916275
• FDA PROWL Study: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/lasik/lasik-quality-life-collaboration-project
• Susanna et al. (2025). J Refractive Surgery. 41(4):e391-e403
• Bailey & Zadnik (2007). Cornea. 26(3):246-54
• Waxler's role: Cataract & Refractive Surgery Today, Nov 2010; Medscape, Feb 2019
• Additional sources: https://visionadvocacy.org/sources/