Dry eye surgery being heavily pushed by my local NEWS programs.

[No Elephants]

It's getting ridiculous.

For the last several weeks, my local news programs have been mentioning that a surgery is available to help alleviate the symptoms of dry eyes. They talk about it as a new item, not as a sponsor or as an advertisement. (Same local news shows that never mention drone killings or military injuries or casualties, I might add.) And they don't just mention it, the anchors yammer on to each other about it--how dry their own eyes are, how often they have to put drops in their eyes, etc. It's incredibly suspicious.

Bizarre. Who would even give them a press release release on this? Why, people who perform this exciting :sarcasm: surgery, I imagine. But, that would be good for one broadcast, or maybe one day--morning news, midday news, evening news and night news. But, for several weeks?

I wonder what the potential is for losing vision from eye infections or a slip of the scalpel? And why? So you don't have to buy a bottle of eye drops or make your own sterile solution?

Aside from the deplorable ethics of my local news broadcasters and the doctors who seem to be paying them, I would not go anywhere near this surgery for a million bucks.

I did pick up one bit of useful info, though. Apparently, some eye drops contain preservatives and some don't. I would rather not put unnecessary chemicals into my eyes, just for the sake of making them feel wetter. If I were to buy drops without preservatives, though, I would need to know how fresh they were and, after I got them home, I would have to be careful that I did not keep them too long. So, again, it may be best to make small batches of your own sterile solution. I am going to look into that.

[Enthusiast]

1. I understand you feeling this way.

The local news program is pushing unnecessary surgery while completely ignoring serious pressing issues.

I think the media is our most serious issue. We cannot hope to have a democracy with a media in the state it is in. We cannot bring issues to the public's attention when everything is filtered through the corporate screening process.

[No Elephants]

2. I have the very strong suspicion that they are being paid to push this surgery.

I can think of no other reason to report this for more than one day's news programs. It's at least three weeks now. And, as mentioned, they don't simply report it. They go on and on about it, how very dry their own eyes are, how much they have to spend on eye drops (which makes the cost of the surgery worth it in the long run), etc.

The fact that they are doing ads for the surgery under the pretense of reporting a news story is unbelievable. This is far worse than product placement in a movie or TV show.