Cale columns
I ask you that. Or read the irony in the screaming headline ‘Call for more research on tinnitus and hearing loss’. That call to the pharmaceutical industry was therefore not heard.
Not because this sector itself suffers from noise or continuous ringing in the ears, but because of East Indian deafness. Because for a long time there seemed to be no profit from research and medication against hearing damage, because the target group was too small. And so the call was ignored. Until now, because now 10 percent of young people and, among others, 30 percent of (professional) musicians suffer from this condition, a revenue model is looming.
Tinnitus means that you hear continuous noise in your head. It can have various causes, including exposure to loud noise – for example at a concert – or a cold.
Minority and majority
Surely it should not be the case that you belong to a group that has poor hearing and where the call for treatment is not heard by the hearing? Because the group is 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, with the exception of idealists, does not see a great revenue model in it, then nothing will happen. Tinnitus is an incredibly annoying experience, of a continuous beep or noise in your head. Why doesn’t it apply in the music industry, as in democracy, that the majority is in charge, but that the minority is taken into account? Now the minority is not taken into account, but the minority is presented with the bill.
For years, the call fell on deaf ears, according to many tinnitus sufferers. The music industry used fallacies like ‘you have to feel music’ and ‘learn to live with it’. Didn’t they actually say: those who want to hear, but can’t, just have to feel…
The Health Council 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. The call to work now on combating tinnitus will not be lost.
And no more beeping.
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So to no end