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# Pull LASIK Off Market: Waxler
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/pull-lasik-off-market-waxler/
- Published: 2019-11-14T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T15:53:07.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Devices, #legacy-id-D5145509

Retired CDRH branch chief **Morris Waxler**, who voted to approve LASIK eye surgery when he worked for the agency, now tells CBS News the vote was a mistake and LASIK should be taken off the market. “I reexamined the documentation … and said, ‘Wow, this is not good,” Waxler [told](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lasik-eye-surgery-retired-fda-adviser-says-procedure-should-be-taken-off-market/?ref=fdaweb.com) the network. He said his own analysis of industry data shows complication rates between 10% and 30%.

In 2011, Waxler petitioned FDA for a voluntary recall of LASIK. The agency denied the petition three years later and told CBS it “has not found any new safety concerns associated with LASIK devices.”

Waxler’s comments appear as part of a lengthier CBS News piece reviewing some of the patient claims of complications with the surgery.

Earlier this year Waxler [called](daweb.com/login.php?sa=v&aid=D5143275&searchWords=waxler&cate=S&stid=%241%24pd%2F.8c%2F.%243%2FUACdJ6aXtodUFtgf0mM%2F) on FDA to stop deceiving the public about adverse events associated with a laser procedure called the small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE), that is intended to reduce or eliminate nearsightedness in certain patients 22 years of age or older. SMILE was [approved in 2016](https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm520560.htm?ref=fdaweb.com) for Carl Zeiss Meditec’s VisuMax Femtosecond Laser.