In yet another residual success of the Deafness Research Foundation’s National Campaign for Hearing Health, which heavily promoted universal newborn hearing screening, Alaska recently mandated every birthing facility in the state to provide newborn hearing screening within one month of birth. The goal is for any child who shows signs of hearing loss to be diagnosed within three months and begin receiving intervention services within six months. All hospitals in the state have the necessary equipment to screen each baby’s hearing, to determine whether the mechanics of the ear are working properly and to evaluate the brain’s ability to respond to sound. For more information on the mandate, visit the State of Alaska's website.
Accessible Kiosks at O’Hare International Airport
The Chicago Department of Aviation, along with the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, has installed the first accessible kiosk at O’Hare International Airport and more are on the way. Each new kiosk is equipped with a public access videophone, a multilingual touch screen monitor providing airport transportation and tourist information, an overhead plasma monitor that features accessibility information about tourist attractions in the City of Chicago, streaming text announcements, and it is wheelchair accessible. Eight more kiosks are planned for the upper and lower levels of the terminals and Bus/Shuttle Center at O’Hare and two kiosks are planned for Midway International Airport. For more visit: www.flychicago.com/news/pdf/AccessibleKiosks7-25-07.pdf.
Hearing-Toxic Drugs
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved labeling changes for erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs after finding the potential risk of sudden hearing loss caused by such products as Cialis, Levitra, and Viagra. A case report published earlier this year in the Journal of Laryngology & Otology concerning sudden hearing loss in a man taking Viagra, prompted the a search of the FDA’s Adverse Events Reporting System for instances of hearing loss ED drugs.
After reviewing the results and finding a small percentage of users suffered sudden hearing loss, sometimes accompanied by ringing in the ears and dizziness, the FDA has asked the manufacturers to change the labels to correctly caution patients. For more information about this study please click here.
Deafness Research Foundation won a 2006 Apex Award of Excellence in health and medical writing for the feature "Bad Bugs, Bad Bugs, Whatcha Gonna Do?" published in the winter 2005 issue of Hearing Health magazine. The award-winning entry created awareness on the number one bacterial and viral killers of infants, group B streptococcal bacteria (GBS) and cytomegalovirus (CMV), both of which also cause hearing loss in survivors. Despite their prevalence – affecting an estimated 25 percent of pregnancies – neither "bad bug" is very well known and, at present, no vaccine is available.
