Checkmate?

I read kmayes response that she noticed an interesting thing regarding the news of an 18 year old woman who received her own adult stem cells treatment saw her hearing loss improve dramatically.

I noticed one thing… a total silence from the people who are involved in advocating for audism, DBC, etc… no comments from them (I am sure they lurk here though.)

Interesting.

I think all this is an understatment on what's going on here. More like an exclamation point and some just don't want to deal with that fact. Hence, the literal silence.

Here's the captioned video about the story of that 18 year old woman who may be in fact the first American to have her hearing loss nearly restored with the help of her own adult stem cells.
Why are the Deaf bloggers so quiet on this? If it were a cochlear implant thing they'd be all over it like a moth to a flame because it's a topic they've become well accustomed to and are comfortable in dealing with it, even acceptance. But what about the story on this adult stem cells successful treatment (so far) on an 18 year old deaf woman who was once hearing is now close to her former self? Doing a blog Google search hardly show any Deaf blogs that have covered the breaking story. Not hardly but none is more like it but save a few.

Perhaps they are still digesting the story? Perhaps so even though many believed just a few months ago that a cure or successful restoration (partial or otherwise) wouldn't happen in another few decades away find suddenly themselves confronted with the fact that it happened just last month!

Adult stem cells research and application for the restoration and cure for nerve deafness are fast approaching and becoming a reality. There is no way this can be compared on the level of cochlear implant which was a source of scorn and distrust for over 20 years. According to the video it appeared that using your own adult stem cells has seemingly proven to be safe and effective compared to embryonic stem cells and cells donated from other people for use. Perhaps the Deaf community doesn't want to talk about this success extensively so because looking at the chess board seeing that they've been "checkmated"? After all, how can you compete against 33+ million people with hearing loss with the majority of them due to nerve deafness who will welcome this successful adult stem cells treatment for hearing loss. Even Gamas Wanderings' own poll showed that approximately 60% of those who voted would take or might take the adult stem cells cure over those who would not. That's pretty telling. Funny how people thought cochlear implant was bad enough, we now have a very real possibility in the very near term well within our lifetime to see that nerve deafness hearing loss would become a thing of the past once this adult stem cells treatment begin to ramp up and that 2009 is the turning point.

Checkmate?

Or not?

You decide.

Will Deaf Culture Die Out Someday?

There is always a possibility that Deaf culture could die out and this is dependent on a variety of factors with some of them going against the spread of Deaf culture and its language, ASL. But at this point it's probably more of a matter of "if" and not "when." Then again that's subject to change.

One of the biggest factor that could affect the outcome on the survivability of Deaf culture would be the fertility rate among married Deaf couples whose deafness genes would be passed onto their deaf offsprings, thus enabling the continuation of their Deaf culture through ASL. According to this latest genetic study it has shown that through "mixing" that Deaf culture is able to survive and grow in this manner but it also comes with a caveat.

In the United States, 80%–90% of individuals with profound deafness currently marry a deaf partner;39 however, the introduction of cochlear-implant technology is profoundly altering the mating structure of the deaf population. By facilitating oral communication and educational mainstreaming, substantially all of the deaf children of hearing parents will be redirected into the hearing mating pool. Even if all of the deaf children of deaf parents eschewed implants, continued to learn sign language, and mated assortatively, the size of the pool would decrease dramatically...

In other words even if they shun cochlear implants completely and continue with ASL the size of the Deaf pool would decrease over time simply because of the introduction of cochlear implants has drastically altered how mating is done. And increasingly many would prefer the hearing group because CI users are able to interact much more readily with the hearing society through talking and listening versus a Deaf community.

The study goes on with even further with another caveat.

On the other hand, if deaf couples begin to embrace cochlear-implant technology for their children, the pool size will continue to decrease, eventually resulting in the substantial disappearance of the deaf culture.

It seems that technology (i.e. cochlear implants and hearing aids) exerts a great deal of influence on mating preferences which brings me to this. The inexorable march for the cure and restoration of hearing loss.

This march for a cure through stem cells and other biotechnological advances may in fact provide the final blow on whether Deaf culture and its society can survive. Technology is already recognized as one of the limiting factor on the spread of Deaf culture, the community and ASL. Imagine the further downward spiral of Deaf culture and its society once people with hearing loss gets treated with a biomedical cure which will alter drastically the mating structure in a population faced with less and less people with hearing loss.