Reader’s column: Tenietdus | Metronieuws.nl

Cale columns

Yesterday, 10:37

I ask you. Or read the irony in the screaming headline “Call for More Research on Tinnitus and Hearing Loss.” This appeal to the pharmaceutical industry has therefore not been heeded.

Not because this same sector suffers from constant ringing or ringing in the ears, but because of East Indian deafness. Because for a long time there seemed to be no profit from research and drugs against hearing damage, because the target group was too small. And so the call was ignored. Until now, since now 10 percent of young people and among others, 30 percent of (professional) musicians suffer from this condition, an income model is looming.

Tinnitus means that you hear continuous noise in your head. It can have various causes, including exposure to loud noises, such as during a concert, or a cold.

Minority and majority

Surely it shouldn’t be a case of belonging to a group who are hard of hearing and where the request for treatment is not heard from the hearing? Why is the group too small? If a disease or epidemic is large enough, a medicine is developed at lightning speed, as with Covid-19. But if the pharmaceutical industry, except for the idealists, does not see it as a great revenue model, then nothing will happen. Tinnitus is an incredibly annoying experience, a constant beeping or noise in your head. Why isn’t it true in the music industry, as in a democracy, that the majority rules, but the minority is taken into account? Now the minority is not considered, but the minority is presented with the bill.

For years, the call fell on deaf ears, according to many tinnitus sufferers. The music industry has used fallacies like “you have to hear the music” and “learn to live with it”. They didn’t really say: if you want to listen, but you can’t, you should hear…

The Health Board recently advised the Cabinet to lower the maximum permitted decibel level from 103 to 100. We can’t cure it (yet), but fortunately we can prevent it. The beginning of a serious approach is there. Your call to work now on fighting tinnitus will not be lost.

And no more beeps.