An article in New Scientist (which you can read here) has told of how a group of 45 profoundly deaf people will receive gene therapy which could trigger some growth in their natural hearing.
The treatment, which has already been successful trialled on mice, involves the injection of a “harmless” virus into the ear.
Extract:
People who have lost their hearing will be injected with a harmless virus carrying a gene that should trigger the regrowth of their ears’ sensory receptors.
IN TWO months’ time, a group of profoundly deaf people could be able to hear again, thanks to the world’s first gene therapy trial for deafness.
The volunteers, who lost their hearing through damage or disease, will get an injection of a harmless virus containing a gene that should trigger the regrowth of the sensory receptors in the ear.
The idea is that the method will return a more natural sense of hearing than other technologies can provide. Hearing aids merely amplify sounds, while cochlear implants transform sound waves into electrical waves that the brain interprets, but they don’t pick up all of the natural frequencies. This means people can find it difficult to distinguish many of the nuances in voices and music.
“The holy grail is to give people natural hearing back,” says Hinrich Staecker at the University of Kansas Medical Center, who is leading the trial. “That’s what we hope to do – we are essentially repairing the ear rather than artificially imitating what it does.”
Read the full article here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229662.400-deaf-people-get-gene-tweak-to-restore-natural-hearing.html#.U1kusOZdWnA
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Hartmut
April 28, 2014
I am a lot concerned about this procedure. This is much more insidious than the CI.
Why must deaf people become hearing? Why must they not be allowed to be deaf [this sentiment actually are being practiced too frequently, for example the enforcement of wearing hearing aids in schools and by parents]? To this question, the audist establishment would respond that they are merely providing choices, options [to remain deaf or to try to be hearing], etc. When talking about options in the area of deafness, it usually turns out to be giving pressures to “purchase” the option of the providers with $$$$, Euros, Pounds, Yens, etc. as the real motivation. They are taking advantage of the mentality of the society, who are obsessed with deafness being a disease and to be eradicated from the human race? Why are they refusing to consider deaf people a natural and desirable variation of the human race, like they worry about the endangered species? Why don’t they make a big cry about the Deaf variety of the Human race, like they do about the rare plants and fishes? TYPICAL AUDISM!
Let deafness be celebrated!
Tim
May 8, 2014
Do you wear glasses? If so, why not let blindness/myopia be celebrated?
Where is the ire for businesses that profit $$$ in providing visual aid equipment?
Being deaf (or blind or having any of your 5 senses compromised) puts us at a profound disadvantage when compared to normal society and the normal expectations of normal society interacting with nature’s norms. Even if you don’t have to interact with humans for the rest of your life, if you are unable to hear the sounds of nature around you, you are at a profound disadvantage. This is not audism – it’s just a natural observation and common sense.
So.. what should we do (if anything) about deafness (or blindness, etc)?
Food for thought – In heaven, there will be no deafness (or blindness, etc). If God sees fit to cure it in heaven, I’m not sure I understand why we should be irate at humans on earth trying to do the same.
(btw – if God was handing out cures to deafness, would you accept it from Him? Why not accept the same from your doctor? Or do you advocate rejecting all doctors for all reasons? I’m trying to understand why so many people who are quick to cry “audism!” don’t mind wearing glasses. There is nothing wrong with medical research for profit. If companies didn’t do this, we would have as many medical advances as we see in Russia. That is to say, zero. And then where would we all be?)
Glen
August 27, 2014
I have moderate to severe hearing loss and have always wanted to be cured. Wearing hearing aids is just simply not enough. Other deaf individuals may not want a cure but there is a lot of hearing impaired people that do….
ruchika
April 2, 2015
Iam ruchika from india .since i was a child 14 years i have slowly lost my hearing now iam 28 i have 90% lost my hearing i can only hear very loud noises please reccomend me your personel detials which i can get back with you thanks