Jessica Starr was a young woman who was full of life and a source of joy to her family and the many viewers who knew her through her work as a meteorologist at Fox 2 Detroit. She tragically ended her own life in December of 2018, just 2 months after LASIK SMILE surgery. She left behind videos and a suicide note detailing the pain and issues she endured after her surgery, complications that ultimately resulted in her taking her own life.

Jessica was a beloved figure in Detroit and her loss was felt deeply in her town. We are calling on the University of Michigan as the largest and most prestigious medical provider and a representative for academic research in Jessica's home state of Michigan to immediately put a stop to their own laser eye surgery practice.

It is unconscionable to on one hand claim to be an academic and research leader in the field of ophthalmology and vision, and at the same time to profit directly off of a surgery that is completely unnecessary and known to be a cause of terrible, life altering pain that ruins patients' lives.

We ask UM and their Kellogg Eye Center to end all all LASIK and other refractive eye surgeries at their facilities and instead to make use of their considerable resources to create a clinic dedicated to research and help those like Jessica and the untold numbers of others like her.

Jessica is just the latest victim of this unnecessary and dangerous surgery. We are calling on the medical community of Detroit to put an end to this surgery before another life is unnecessarily and tragically lost to laser eye surgery.

The medical community has known for many years that LASIK, SMILE, PRK, and similar laser eye surgeries cause damage to the delicate corneal nerves, in certain cases, damage and inflammation to the corneal nerves leads to corneal neuralgia, in fact laser eye surgery is the *main cause* of this horrible, debilitating, life changing medical condition (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocular_neuropathic_pain and http://lasikcomplications.com)

For most patients, once they have been damaged by these surgeries there is no one to turn to after the surgery goes bad. Dismissed and sometimes belittled by our LASIK surgeons, we scramble and go from doctor to doctor looking for answers and most will not admit the existence of the disease despite the medical evidence.

The FDA has been petitioned to disclose the true extent of the complications this surgery can cause, but the truth is that LASIK, SMILE, PRK, and other refractive eye surgeries cannot fix anything in a patient's eyes that is not already fixable by glasses or contact lenses, this amounts to a dangerous and risky medical procedure that is being sold to patients as a completely safe same-day procedure without risk of damage. This is a clear conflict of interest to any doctor who is willing to make money off of an unnecessary medical procedure with such terrible, poorly researched, and poorly understood outcomes.

Through their research, UM can be an example to other universities to end their LASIK and refractive surgery and treat those who are already affected by complications from these surgeries.

Jessica's death was preventable, Detroit does not need to see one more unnecessary death due to LASIK complications, we are asking the University of Michigan to take the only responsible action in the light of Jessica's death and others like her.

Signed:

- Justin Goodell, Refractive Eye Surgery Patient

- Paula Cofer, LASIK Patient Advocate

- Noah Hanna, Chronic Eye Pain Sufferer