Stem cell deafness breakthrough won't kill off the 'Deaf community' | Charlie Swinbourne
For one deaf person, a treatment to make them a hearing person would be a godsend, for another it's like wiping out a cultureA huge breakthrough in deafness research was announced this week, when for the first time stem cells were shown to improve hearing in animals.The prospect of using the treatment on humans is a few years away, but eventually it could be used to treat a condition called auditory neuropathy, which affects about 15% of deaf people in Britain. Since one in six people in the UK have some level of hearing loss, stem cell treatment could potentially change the lives of 1.5 million people.This is just the latest development in treatment options for deaf people. There was a time when your only choice would be whether to wear a hearing aid or not, but nowadays more and more deaf people are choosing to have a cochlear implant....
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