I thought this was a belated April Fool’s joke, but it seems to be serious. Can you imagine buying a gadget that appears to claim to perform a surgical procedure on your eyes?

The hand-held “excimer laser” purportedly performs a two-step procedure, first cutting a small flap in the cornea of your eye, the second vaporises a small section of the lens. It’s claimed that the whole procedure is virtually painless, but there’s a footnote pointing out that the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t yet evaluated that claim.

The DIY kit costs 100 USD and comes with the following:

A Scal-Pal hand-operated excimer combination laser.
A mild sedative.
Eye drops to prevent blinking.
A quick start guide.
A post operative sleeping mask.

The kit doesn’t seem to come with the antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medications that you would normally take for a week after such an operation.

When you apply online for your home kit, you’re asked to specify your prescription for each eye, and you have to be over 18.

A few things come to mind.

Excimer lasers usually cost five figure sums and need some serious power requirements. I did a web search for the “world’s smallest excimer laser”. The smallest I found was about the size of a microwave oven, and was relatively low powered; so I’m a bit sceptical that a hand-held excimer laser can be made for 100 dollars.

Secondly, if it did somehow work, on a one-time only basis say, who in their right minds would take risks with their eyesight??!!

Found via glist.com

I’m not linking to the product page, but you can check out the claims for yourself by visiting lasikathome dot com.