Hearing News Watch

  By David H. Kirkwood WASHINGTON, DC—Citing “structural and programmatic changes for the Better Hearing Institute (BHI),” the Hearing Industries Association (HIA), which funds BHI, announced that Sergei Kochkin, BHI’s executive director since 2004, “will no longer be associated with the institute” effective November 1. In a press statement issued October 22, HIA said, “While Dr. Kochkin will no longer

PHOENIX—The Academy of Doctors of Audiology (ADA) will be focusing squarely on the future of its profession when it holds its 2012 Annual Convention November 8-10 at the Arizona Biltmore Resort in Phoenix. The meeting’s theme is “Phoenix Rising: Taking Audiology Above and Beyond,” and ADA is urging members to attend and “become part of the movement that is shaping

TUCSON, AZ–In the 18 months since the launch of The Blogs@Hearing Health & Technology Matters (HHTM), the popular online publication has published well over 1000 posts and reached 90,000 separate readers, who have viewed more than 215,000 pages. HHTM has also quickly established an international reputation as an authoritative source of valuable information and insights for hearing professionals, hard-of-hearing consumers,

WASHINGTON, DC—Growth in the U.S. hearing aid market shrank during the third quarter of 2012, according to the latest statistical report from the Hearing Industries Association (HIA). The 705,791 hearing aids sold by manufacturers in the past three months was just 1.0% more than in the same period in 2011. The picture was even worse in the private, i.e., non-governmental,

CHICAGO—Nine Chicago firefighters won a victory last week when an Illinois appeals court sustained verdicts in their favor in their suit against Federal Signal Corporation. The ruling upheld the awards of $445,000 to the nine plaintiffs, while rejecting the company’s appeal of the jury’s decision in a 2009 trial. In their suit, the firefighters said that the sirens made by

WICHITA, KS—Employees at Spirit AeroSystems have raised $50,000 for the Hearing Aid Fund of the Children Miracle Network Hospitals. The money, which was raised through the Good Neighbor Fund, will go toward hearing aids for children whose families are otherwise unable to pay for them. The Good Neighbor Fund is an employee-run, non-profit program organized by Spirit employees to make

SAN FRANCISCO—Readers of this blog who live or visit San Francisco might want to check out Mozzeria, an unusual pizza and pasta restaurant in the Mission District. What’s unusual about it? Well, for one thing, along with pizza Margherita and pomodoro, there’s also a roast duck pizza with hoisin sauce. And the pasta dishes include both tagliatelle and Japanese pumpkin

By David H. Kirkwood WASHINGTON, DC–Three national associations of hearing care professionals have added their voices to that of the Hearing Industries Association (HIA) in calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take action to curb the sale of hearing aids under the guise of personal sound amplification products (PSAPs). Although the manufacture, marketing, and sale of hearing

If you detect a sound when it starts, does that mean you’ll also notice when it stops? Not necessarily, a recent research study finds. And, as a leader of the investigation pointed out, failing to detect the cessation of a sound can be dangerous In a study, entitled “Detection of Appearing and Disappearing Objects in Complex Acoustic Scenes” that was

By David H. Kirkwood  LOS ANGELES–Last month, The Good Ear introduced the Better Hearing iPhone app. The app, which costs $4.99, contains Threshold Sound Conditioning (TSC), a proprietary technology that the company says can actually reverse users’ hearing loss. (For more, see my earlier post on Hearing News Watch.) Just a few weeks later, the Los Angeles-based company announced that