Frequency Therapeutics Receives $2M Grant to Investigate Hearing Restoration for US Military
Biotech startup, Frequency Therapeutics, announced today that it has received a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Hearing and Balance Research Award grant. The $2 million dollar, peer-reviewed grant will be used to investigate the company’s unique Progenitor Cell Activation (PCA) approach to hearing restoration for military personnel with service-related hearing loss. Prevention of hearing loss…
Read More
Fit To Serve Bill Moves to Senate with Revised Language
WASHINGTON, DC — Earlier this week the U.S House of Representatives passed the Veterans Mobility Safety Act of 2015 (HR 3471), a bill designed to improve access to hearing care services for veterans. The revised bill now goes to the Senate for deliberation. In the original version of the bill hearing instrument specialists would have…
Read More
IHS Launches “Appreciation Week for Our Warriors” to Promote VA Legislation
LIVONIA, MICHIGAN — The International Hearing Society (IHS) is launching their nationwide campaign on Monday: Appreciation Week for Our Warriors. The campaign coincides with Veterans Day, on November 11th, and IHS has asked its members for help this week in promoting the organization’s ongoing push to pass the Fit to Serve legislation through congress. Each day this week IHS has…
Read More
US Senate VA Committee to Hold Hearing on ‘Fit to Serve’ Legislation
WASHINGTON, DC — Despite being slowed in the US House of Representatives earlier this summer, the so-called Fit to Serve legislation–supported by the International Hearing Society (IHS)–is advancing in the US Senate this week. According to IHS, the Senate VA Committee will be holding a hearing on the bill this Wednesday. Passage of the Veteran’s Access to…
Read More
Fit to Serve bill wins support from a leading senator
WASHINGTON, DC—The Fit to Serve campaign, designed to allow and encourage the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to hire licensed hearing aid specialists to treat veterans with hearing loss, got a boost when U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) announced on May 8 that he would sponsor the Veterans Hearing Aid Access and Assistance Act…
Read More
Dispenser gives $15,000 to support Fit to Serve initiative
LIVONIA, MI–The Fit to Serve bill, discussed last week in this blog’s update on pending federal legislation related to hearing health, got a big boost recently when Julia Beall-McKelvey, a Pennsylvania hearing aid specialist, donated $15,000 to the International Hearing Society (IHS) advocacy fund for the veteran-oriented initiative. Her contribution, along with others made at…
Read MoreThe hearing aid market is growing slowly. So, what else is new?
By David H. Kirkwood WASHINGTON, DC–Consider all the reasons why hearing aid sales should have risen through the roof over the past decade or two. For one thing, there have been dramatic improvements in technology, fueled largely by the introduction of digital signal processing in the 1990s. Powerful 21st century hearing aid hardware and software…
Read More
Senate bill introduced to support IHS Fit to Serve initiative
WASHINGTON, DC—Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana, introduced a bill on May 8 supporting the International Hearing Society’s Fit to Serve campaign, which would authorize the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to employ hearing aid specialists to meet the fast-growing needs of hearing-impaired vets. Senate bill S. 2311, which was co-sponsored by three other…
Read MoreAt hearing, VA opposes IHS-backed bill allowing it to hire hearing aid specialists to serve vets
By David H. Kirkwood WASHINGTON, DC—A bill to advance the goal of Fit to Serve, an International Hearing Society campaign to give hearing aid specialists a greater role in caring for veterans with hearing problems, was debated during a March 27 hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Health. BILL’S SPONSOR SEES “UNACCEPTABLE” DELAYS…
Read More
Moe Bergman, pioneering audiologist and director of the first VA clinic, dies
HERZLIYA, ISRAEL—Moe Bergman, EdD, one of the last remaining founders of audiology, died on February 20 in Herzliya, Israel. He was 97. Dr. Bergman, a native New Yorker who moved to Israel with his wife, Hannah, in 1975, became involved in audiology in the 1930s, long before the term “audiology” was even used. In the…
Read More