In 2012, when I launched My Beautiful Eyes, after many months of research I realised it wasn’t just the UK high street clinics I was taking on, but conglomerates like Abbott Medical Optics (AMO) who provide Optical Express with much of their hardware:
www.amo-inc.com/products/refractive/ilasik
(See related FB post 17 March)
"
AMO bought Irvine-based IntraLase Corp. for $808 million in January 2007. This allowed AMO to combine IntraLase technology for cutting a flap in the cornea with AMO technology for reshaping the cornea. The combination of these complementary technologies has made "all-laser LASIK" possible.[1] NASA later approved this all-laser LASIK for use on astronauts.[2]”:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Medical_O...anced_Medical_Optics
(Check out AMO's ‘Products’!!)
Unrelated to eye surgery but of interest, May 2012: "
Global Health Care Company Abbott Laboratories Inc. has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1.5 billion to resolve its criminal and civil liability arising from the company’s unlawful promotion of the prescription drug Depakote for uses not approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Justice Department announced today.”
www.fda.gov/ICECI/CriminalInvestigations/ucm303539.htm
Mr Julian Stevens is one of the leading refractive eye surgeons at Moorfields Eye Hospital, and not only does he provide consulting services to 'AMO Inc’, but for a number of years Optical Express have coincidentally sent many of their damaged patients to him:
www.fivefootsix.co.uk/clientdev/julian_s..._Stevens_Profile.pdf
More than two years ago (hoping to sweeten me) OE offered to pay for me to see two surgeons for a 2nd & 3rd opinion. Julian Stevens was one of them, but he refused to meet me.
Once you have all the pieces of the jigsaw it’s easy to understand the incestuous nature of this industry.
I finally met Julian recently when accompanying one of my clients, his damaged patient, to his private rooms at Moorfields. Diagnosed with MGD and dry eyes (DES) pre surgery, nevertheless Julian considered the patient a good candidate for laser eye surgery. Post surgery she is left with unbearable dry eyes etc... and her quality of life has been ruined.
Read Debs’ post 1 April ’14:
www.opticalexpressruinedmylife.co.uk/ind...l.html?start=30#9972
Duh - I almost forgot why I started this post!
1. AMO provide OE (and others) with the hardware which damages so many people's eyes and leaves them with DES, MGD, Blepharitis etc...
2. Damaged patients need expensive eye drops.
3. AMO profit from selling said eye drops/punctal plugs etc... to alleviate the problem they are ultimately responsible for causing!
4. Eye drops often paid for by the NHS.
5. The UK government are inadvertently(?) financing AMO and its shareholders.
The moral of this story: it’s time the press and media did some digging of their own to uncover what I consider to be the biggest scandal of this century! If I’m able to discover the corruption I have, then I’m sure serious investigative journalists will have the resources to discover plenty more!