Family of Penn Hills officer who died by suicide after Lasik surgery receives letter from FDA

A young Pittsburgh-area police officer died by suicide and pointed to Lasik eye surgery complications as the reason. Now his Penn Hills family is demanding industry accountability.

Ryan Kingerski's family members said the 26-year-old's Lasik eye surgery led to unbearable pain. They say if doctors and industry leaders highlighted or even conveyed the real, much higher complication numbers, patients would be better educated about the risks. They believe the industry is trying to downplay complications and silence people like their late son. 

FDA sends letter to Ryan Kingerski's family

In an interview with KDKA-TV earlier this year, mom Stefanie Kingerski described her son Ryan as "witty, charming, smart." 

But the dedicated Penn Hills police officer died by suicide after struggling with debilitating side effects following Lasik, which is an elective eye surgery.

"He kept saying about how bad the pain in his head was. He had a terrible headache and wasn't able to focus, and the vision and the blurriness and everything else," dad Tim Kingerski previously explained. 

Now Tim and Stefanie Kingerski are fighting for industry accountability, sharing with KDKA Investigates a new response letter they say they received from the Food and Drug Administration, signed by the FDA's consumer team. They say it proves acknowledgement of what they call a gross underreporting of adverse side effects.

It says the FDA inspector "has been following these Laser Lasik incidences for several years. He explained there is under-reporting by the Ophthalmic Clinics because they are not submitting the required patient injuries to the FDA." 

The letter also says the FDA is "actively looking into sending out a 'warning notice' to the public about the risks" of Lasik.

FDA adviser who approved Lasik says he regrets it 

"I tell people that ask me, and even if they don't ask, it's 'trust but verify.' If they say it's 1%, go look it up, go find out what is the actual rate," said retired FDA adviser Dr. Morris Waxler.

Waxler voted to approve Lasik three decades ago, but now he says he regrets it and is one of Lasik's biggest critics after his independent review of the data.  

"They'll make a long list if they provide any information about informed consent. Provide a long list of things that could happen, but they will not provide actual percentages because they know the percentages are really high. They're 10% to 20% to 30%, some as high as 75%, depending on what you're measuring."

The FDA warns on its website that some patients may lose vision and develop debilitating visual symptoms, adding that the long-term safety and effectiveness of Lasik surgery is not known.

Still, supporters of Lasik tout a 1% complication rate.

"And all I can do is provide the information, and they can look it up. And you can ask the surgeon, 'Well, why don't you cite that study? Why are you ignoring that study? Why are you not pointing this out? Is there something wrong with those studies? Why have you ignored this whole body of literature?' So you need to ask them questions," Waxler said.  

Red flags for any elective procedure include you feel like you're receiving a sales pitch, a surgeon promises perfection, there's pressure to make a decision quickly, side effects are not highlighted or minimized and it feels more like a business transaction than medical care.

Waxler points out Lasik is very attractive to young people, public servants, like police officers like Ryan, and military members.

U.S. congressman talking with FDA  

The Kingerski family said Congressman Chris Deluzio is now looking into this, given his military background, and hoping to find answers, as well. 

"Congressman Deluzio's office is engaging with the FDA to see what can be done to avoid terrible tragedies like Officer Kingerski's from happening in the future. Our brave cops have hard enough jobs; nobody should worry about losing their life after something like this," his spokesperson said in a statement. 

KDKA-TV also reached out directly to the FDA and was told, "The FDA does not discuss possible or ongoing investigations."