[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 10, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2500-S2502]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PREVENTING HEARING LOSS

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, today I bring to the attention of my 
colleagues an article that recently appeared in The Washington Post, 
``Hearing Loss Touches a Younger Generation.'' This article raises 
important issues related to hearing loss and gives us practical advice 
for protecting our hearing.
  Hearing loss affects approximately 28 million Americans and is 
affecting more of us at younger ages. Hearing difficulties among those 
ages 45 to 64 increased 26 percent between 1971 and 1990, while those 
between ages 18 and 44 experienced a 17 percent increase.
  About one third of the cases of hearing loss are caused, at least in 
part, by extreme or consistent exposure to high decibel noises. While 
the Environmental Protection Agency has worked to decrease our exposure 
to loud noises at work, many Americans now face threats to optimal 
hearing during their leisure hours from loud music, lawn mowers and 
outdoor equipment, automobiles, airplanes and other sources. Too many 
Americans simply are not aware of the devastating impact loud sounds 
can have on their hearing.
  At the encouragement of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the 
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders 
(NIDCD) is leading a collaborative effort with the National Institute 
on Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the National Institute on 
Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to help improve awareness about 
noise-induced hearing loss. It is my hope that this effort ultimately 
will help reverse the trend toward increasing noise-induced hearing 
loss.
  Health professionals, too, play an important role in the treatment 
and prevention of hearing loss. In particular, I'd like to highlight 
the important work of audiologists in successfully combating and 
treating hearing loss. Over the years I have been impressed by the 
cost-effective, quality care they provide, most notably demonstrated in 
the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system, which has 
allowed veterans direct access to audiologists since 1992.
  Through high standards of care by qualified health care professionals 
and through improved education about the dangers of hearing loss, I 
believe we can protect and improve the hearing of millions of 
Americans. I ask unanimous consent that the attached article be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       [From the Washington Post]

  Hearing Loss Touches a Younger Generation; With Rise in Noise, More 
                              Seeking Help

                           (By Susan Levine)

       Tomi Browne listens to people's ears. To how they hear and 
     what they don't. And for most of her 22 years as an 
     audiologist, her clients have been overwhelmingly older--
     stereotypically so. Seniors pushing 70 or beyond. The 
     hearing-aid set.
       But lately, surprisingly, Browne's contemporaries have been 
     showing up at her Northern Virginia office.
       These are men and women in their forties to early fifties, 
     baby boomers. They confess that they strain to catch words in 
     crowded restaurants or meetings, or that the television 
     suddenly needs to be turned higher. Loud sounds really hurt 
     their ears, and maybe they've noticed an incessant buzzing.
       Some walk out with the startling news that they've 
     permanently lost hearing. More

[[Page S2501]]

     than a few return to get fitted for hearing aids.
       ``I'm seeing more of my classmates . . . as patients, 
     rather than them bringing in their parents,'' said Browne, 
     44. ``Sometimes they're even bringing in their teenage 
     kids.''
       Other audiologists report the same sobering age shift, and 
     statistics are starting to corroborate the anecdotal 
     evidence. Data from the National Health Interview Survey 
     indicate that significantly more Americans are having 
     difficulties hearing. From 1971 to 1990, problems among those 
     ages 45 to 64 jumped 26 percent, while the 18 to 44 age group 
     reported a 17 percent increase.
       California researchers found an even sharper rise in 
     hearing impairment among more than 5,000 men and women in 
     Alameda County, with rates of impairment for those in their 
     fifties increasing more than 150 percent from 1965 to 1994.
       With people living longer than ever, ``This has to be 
     viewed as a very serious health and social problem,'' said 
     Sharon Fujikawa, president of the American Academy of 
     Audiology. ``It really behooves us to conserve our hearing as 
     much as possible or risk isolation.''
       Marilyn Pena, a secretary from Germantown, was about 47 
     years old when she first learned her hearing was deficient. 
     She ignored the diagnosis. Soon she also was ignoring her 
     alarm clock--because she couldn't hear its wake-up beep--and 
     resorting to lip reading at work. ``People at work would come 
     up and whisper in [my] ear because they didn't want others to 
     hear, and I couldn't hear, either,'' she said.
       After seven years, pushed by frustrated friends, Pena 
     finally hooked a hearing aid behind her left ear. She no 
     longer guesses in vain at conversation or asks, ``What?'' 
     countless times a day. ``Since I started wearing it, I'm much 
     more observant. It's amazing how many people wear them.''
       Worrisome changes also are taking place among children and 
     teenagers, who are growing up with rock concerts far more 
     deafening than those the Woodstock generation attended, along 
     with the mega-volumes of everything from video arcades to 
     boomboxes. A study published last year in the Journal of the 
     American Medical Association showed that nearly 15 percent of 
     children ages 6 to 19 tested suffered some hearing deficit in 
     either low or high frequencies. Other research has identified 
     pronounced differences among high-schoolers compared with 
     previous decades.
       The main culprit, many suspect, is noise--not just the 
     noise blaring from the headsets that seem permanently 
     attached to teenagers but the noise from their parents' 
     surround-sound stereos, which can rival small recording 
     studios. Add the barrage to moviegoers' ears during flicks 
     such as ``Armageddon'' and ``Godzilla'' (prompting enough 
     complaints that the National Association of Theater Owners 
     convened a task force), and the blast from leaf blowers, 
     mowers, personal watercraft, power tools, even vacuum 
     cleaners.
       Technological advances they may be--powerful conveniences 
     for daily life--but they produce decibel levels that can 
     prove downright dangerous to the ears over time.
       ``We've grown up in a sort of turned-on, switched-on 
     society,'' said Carole Rogin, president of the Hearing 
     Industries Association. The group, in partnership with the 
     National Council on the Aging, just completed a survey of the 
     social, psychological and physiological impact of hearing 
     loss. It's telling that the two organizations decided to drop 
     the age of those polled from 65 to 50.
       For the estimated 28 million Americans with a hearing loss, 
     noise is a leading cause, experts say. Once that would have 
     traced back to the machinery din of mills and factories, but 
     federal regulations have helped protect workers in industrial 
     settings. Now it's more the hours away from work that are the 
     problem. There's even a term for those who study excessive 
     noise from leisure-time pursuits: recreational audiologists.
       Dick Melia, of Arlington, never paid much attention to how 
     annoying the lawn mower or tools were that summer during 
     graduate school when he worked for a contractor. The same 
     goes for the civil rights demonstrations he participated in 
     during the 1960s, and later, the pro basketball games at 
     which he cheered. He'd leave the arena with his ears ringing.
       But during his forties, he noticed other things: how he'd 
     replay his voice mail several times to get all of a message, 
     how he'd race to keep up in discussions, wondering what words 
     he had missed. Then, one night at his office, a fire broke 
     out. The alarm went off. ``I never heard it,'' Melia 
     recounted.
       His procrastination ended; at 50, he got hearing aids. 
     ``There is a problem of stigma,'' said Melia, who directs 
     disability and rehabilitation research within the U.S. 
     Department of Education. ``There is something about hearing 
     aids and the way society over the years has characterized 
     hearing loss.''
       For one, the subject is freighted with fears about growing 
     old. But some scientists and audiologists question whether 
     diminished hearing is an unavoidable consequence of aging, or 
     rather the cumulative assault of a cacophonous world. Both 
     loud, sustained sound and extreme, sudden sound can damage 
     and ultimately destroy the delicate hair cells in the inner 
     ear that translate sound waves into nerve impulses. High-
     frequency sounds are usually the first casualty--consonants 
     such as S and F and children's and women's voices. The 
     ability to distinguish sounds and block background noise also 
     deteriorates.
       Because all that generally occurs over time, the onset of 
     hearing loss is slow and insidious.
       ``People aren't concerned if it doesn't happen now,'' said 
     Laurie Hanin, who leads the audiology department at the 
     League for the Hard of Hearing in New York City. The league 
     is analyzing voluminous data from 20 years of screenings in 
     the New York metropolitan area, and Hanin expects to find a 
     decided decline in hearing acuity.
       Hanin, 42, sometimes has trouble understanding 
     conversation, an unwelcome portent of the future. ``My 
     hearing tests normally, but I'm starting to have some 
     problems,'' she said.
       Last month, the National Institute on Deafness and Other 
     Communication Disorders gathered 100 representatives of 
     medical, research, volunteer and union organizations to talk 
     about noise-induced hearing loss--how it occurs and how it 
     can be prevented. The institute plans to launch a public 
     awareness campaign on the issue in the spring.
       Prevention and education were an ongoing effort at the 
     Environmental Protection Agency until its Office of Noise 
     Abatement was eliminated in 1982. That's about the time a 
     push to require decibel labels on lawn equipment gave way to 
     voluntary notices, which were ``a miserable failure,'' in 
     Kenneth Feith's view, and explain why instructions on lawn 
     mowers or leaf blowers virtually never advise hearing 
     protection.
       ``I think we're going to see a population suffering from 
     hearing loss that will impair learning, impair our ability to 
     carry out tasks,'' said Feith, an EPA senior scientist and 
     policy adviser who headed the Office of Noise Abatement.
       Musicians may be getting the message faster than others, 
     thanks to groups such as Hearing Education and Awareness for 
     Rockers. The 10-year-old nonprofit California organization 
     was founded by Kathy Peck, 39, whose bass career ended the 
     morning after her band opened for Duran Duran. ``I had 
     ringing in my ears that lasted three days. It felt like a 
     bongo drum was in my head.'' She sustained substantial, 
     irreversible damage.
       Early on, HEAR gained visibility when Pete Townshend of the 
     Who wrote it a $10,000 check and publicly acknowledged his 
     own hearing loss. It soon will begin examining audiograms, 
     demographic data and questionnaires from thousands of 
     patients seen at HEAR's clinic in San Francisco. Most have 
     been in their twenties and thirties.
       Nightclubs such as the Capitol Ballroom and the 9:30 Club 
     in the District now offer foam earplugs to patrons. Symphony 
     orchestras increasingly make earplugs and plexiglass screens 
     available to their musicians, especially those sitting within 
     or near the percussion and brass sections. As part of the 
     Navy bands' hearing conservation program, specially designed 
     plugs are handed out even before a musician gets an 
     assignment.
       In the meantime, despite many people's refusal to admit 
     they need help, sales of hearing aids are booming. Nearly 2 
     million were purchased last year, almost 25 percent more than 
     in 1996, at a cost of $600 to $3,100 each. The most expensive 
     are individually programmed digital devices capable of 
     processing sounds 1 million times per second. When fitted 
     within the ear canal, they are literally invisible.
       One buyer in 1997 was President Clinton, who attributed his 
     situation to an adolescence spent playing in school bands and 
     rocking at concerts. According to staff members, the 
     country's most prominent baby boomer wears his hearing aids 
     sporadically. He is most likely to insert them for ceremonies 
     or political gatherings, where he finds it harder to 
     distinguish sounds.
       Stephen Wells, a Washington lawyer who recently received 
     bad news of his own, is weighing his options. Because of a 
     childhood spent around tractors and harvesters on his 
     family's Idaho farm, his right ear measures only borderline. 
     And that's his better ear.
       ``My wife has been saying for a long time that I ought to 
     see about a hearing test,'' said Wells, 51. He compares 
     hearing aids to glasses in function but is uncertain how well 
     they'll work for him day to day. ``I expect that I will at 
     least try them.''


                               SAY AGAIN?

       A number of conditions may disrupt the hearing process and 
     lead to hearing loss. How the ear works and what commonly 
     causes damage:
     How the ear Hears
       1. The outer ear collects sound waves and funnels them into 
     the ear canal.
       2. Sound waves strike the eardrum, causing it to vibrate.
       3. Three tiny bones conduct the vibrations to the cochlea 
     in the inner ear.
       4. Tiny nerve endings in the cochlea, called hair cells, 
     become stimulated. They transform the vibrations into 
     electro-chemical impulses.
       5. These impulses travel to the brain, where they are 
     deciphered into recognizeable sounds.
     Noise-induced hearing loss
       Such loss is caused by one-time exposure to extremely loud 
     sound or sustained exposure to sounds at highmdecibels. Both 
     damage hair cells in the inner ear.
     Symptoms of hearing loss
       The following are frequent indicators of hearing loss. 
     Persons experiencing any of

[[Page S2502]]

     these symptoms should make an appointment with a hearing 
     professional.
       Straining to understand conversations.
       Misunderstanding or needing to have things repeated.
       Turning up TV or radio volume to a point where others 
     complain.
       Having constant ringing or buzzing in the ears.
     Measuring sound
       The loudness of sound is measured in units called decibels. 
     Experts agree that continued exposure to noise above 85 
     decibels eventually will harm hearing. The scale increases 
     logarithmically, meaning that the level of perceived loudness 
     doubles every 10 decibels.

                                                               Decibels
Softest audible sound:..............................................  0
Normal conversation:..............................................40-60
City traffic noises:................................................ 80
Rock concert:...................................................110-120
Sound becomes painful:..............................................125
Jet plane:..........................................................140

Source: International Hearing Society, League for the Hard of Hearing 
and National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

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