Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,164
- Reaction score
- 5
Essayist cautions parents of deaf children on use of cochlear implants | democratandchronicle.com | Democrat and Chronicle
"In the Country of the Blind the One-eyed Man is King or so thought Nunez, the central character of an H.G. Wells story who is sighted in a community of people who are blind. Nunez tries to convince the residents in the country of the blind that they are inferior because of their disability but fails. Nunez screamed: “You don't understand you are blind, and I can see.”
Nunez resigned in frustration and decides to assume the role of a blind person. He kept hearing all the negative comments towards him being sighted. The community doctor even thought his eyes were causing his brain functions to wane: “And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to cure him completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgical operation -- namely, to remove these irritant bodies" -- his eyes. One of the blind elders replied: "Thank Heaven for science!"
I was born sensoneurologically prelingustically deaf, which defined me in laymen terms as someone who couldn't hear a rocket go into space. Auditory aids of all kinds were tried and failed when hearing tests were run. I always thought that meant a pass, as it meant more silence to my world. In 1988, that perspective changed for my mother with the introduction of the Cochlear Implant by my Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor. The next eight years consisted of fighting with my mom, tampering with the device so it wouldn't work, telling the doctor I wanted it out of my head, and coming to a pleasant ending when I ran over the device with my newly bought car at age 16. As I felt the wheels crunching my device, I felt like Archangel in X-Men: The Last Stand when he spread his wings and flew out of his father's medical office in such a way that was provocative yet simplistic in reasoning (The Last Stand).
I was a victim of technology determinism when the cochlear implant industries began targeting parents with deaf children in the late 1980's and early 1990's. This technology was first documented in 1955 as an incident. The entire process from start to implantation in human subjects took approximately 25 years of collaboration with private firms and public sectors before it was released and made commercially available, as per the FDA's stringent requirement for medical devices. As medical practitioners encountered resistance with Deaf adults, they found a new market with hearing parents of deaf children. The majority of children who received implants had Medicare insurance which also made them an easy target.
When this technology was unveiled in the early 1990's in my side of the woods, it was the next big thing in the medical industry. The medical office became the first setting that a parent, notified of their child's hearing loss, experienced. While the parent was still reeling from shock that their child could not hear, the doctors took full advantage of this prime moment to reveal a miracle that restored their child's hearing. The doctor, often sadly uninformed, neglected to mention that there were other options available such as the usage of hearing aids, lifestyle adjustments, and cultural immersion that would benefit both the parent and child, and so forth. This has been very common in Western medicine practice to fix something that's broken.
As Professor Brown has mentioned in her Conesus and Controversy lecture: “western system that sees disease as a result of something being broken; a more mechanical view of medicine. The western system looks for what is broken then they try to fix it (Brown)” This statement has held and still holds true in the approach to a parent who has just discovered their child is deaf. The doctor has automatically perceived the deafness as a disease; an abnormality; and feels a societal need to fix the problem. If the doctor had suggested the child learn sign language and placed the family with the appropriate support services needed, then would the parent even consider a cochlear implant for their child in the first place?
Another issue of concern to me is the Nuremberg Code: “voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion” By this definition, how are babies as young as 10 months giving consent to be implanted? I know when I was 10 and asked if I wanted to hear I had a gut feeling of impending doom before I told her no. My answer wasn't taken into consideration from a medical perspective. The Nuremberg Code also states: “No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur” Where are the lawsuits from children who contracted spinal meningitis as a result of having a cochlear implant surgery? How about the sole fact that inserting a cochlear implant will effectively harm all the residual nerve contained within the cochlea which in turn removes all feasibility for the child to retain natural hearing?
With the emergence of social media and networking, it has become very easy for a person to videotape natural events without being caught. As a result of this, more videotapes of upset and distraught children being forced to put their ‘hearing aids' on are pouring in from grandmothers and other family members to make their way onto YouTube. Another neat thing that has been popping up as of lately and can be credited to social media: vlogs. Blogs signed in American Sign Language and viewed on the Internet via YouTube, Facebook, et al. Not only can the Deaf community and I view and object, we can also do a video response which greatly aids communication amongst the Deaf that do not write very well. Technology makes it much easier for us to debate the CI issue across the internet instead of reading/writing in a foreign language, while keeping in mind ASL is our mother tongue.
One current controversial example of this is titled Missoula Moanings and it shows a girl who has biaural cochlear implants (cochlear implant on both sides) writhing and crying on the bed while screaming at her grandmother. Further investigation reveals that the mother is using her daughter as a pawn to wage legal wars with the deaf father. The mother has already taken him to court and sued for custody because the father did not enforce cochlear implant usage on his daughter. The judge declared the girl was required to wear her cochlear implants at all times except when showering, swimming, or sleeping. The child, Emma, is evidently upset with what she has been forced to wear and does not like it. Even more disturbing are some of the comments about how Emma's rebellion must be a result of the dysfunctional home life she lives in, and others of how shocking the video was because it brings out the skeletons in the closet. There's no mention of what the child wants, how this judicial decision breaches the ethnicity as set forth in science and technology advancement, or what type of treatment Emma is going to require once she's a teenager.
A vlog done by Carl Schroeder told of his own experience growing up and watching his sister writhe on the floor when the teacher tried to force her to put on her hearing aids 50 years ago. Carl was deeply saddened that this same thing from his past was recently relived via YouTube. It caused him to doubt if anything will change 50 years from now in regards to treatment towards the Deaf children and forcing them against their will just as equally as I was in 1990. A quote in the comments field stands out and is written by an anonymous guest: “We are living in a psychological genocide of words and philosophies where the bullets are ‘choices" and "options'. These bullets lodge inside our Deaf souls, causing the slow death of our hope, our culture and our very souls. When we feel the dying, our biggest fear is to face the monster” (Unknown). Carl and this person are correct in the sense that a child should have consent and decide if they want to wear their ‘hearing aids, without force from an elder.
In conclusion, there is still technology present that violates several codes of ethics such as the Nuremberg Code, whether or not to force a child into wearing their auditory device, and so forth. The medical practitioners need to be educated in order to present a more fair and balanced approach to this subject. The approach is currently taking advantage of vulnerable parents with a one-sided approach that is both unfair and immoral.
We as individuals need to make choices for ourselves. However, it doesn't always work that way. Parents make myriad choices for their kids, as there are matters which cannot wait such as schooling choice, vaccinating your child, placement of the car seat in the front or back. With this mindset, it is easy to see how children as young as 10 months are implanted. It is vital that the parents be globally educated and shown both sides of the coin as a fair approach.
The claim that science has improved in technology and ethics is a complete lie because as science grows in leaps and bounds, people like me become unwilling captives of technology when doctors decide we have ears that are ‘broken' and even my simple ‘No' isn't sufficient.
"In the Country of the Blind the One-eyed Man is King or so thought Nunez, the central character of an H.G. Wells story who is sighted in a community of people who are blind. Nunez tries to convince the residents in the country of the blind that they are inferior because of their disability but fails. Nunez screamed: “You don't understand you are blind, and I can see.”
Nunez resigned in frustration and decides to assume the role of a blind person. He kept hearing all the negative comments towards him being sighted. The community doctor even thought his eyes were causing his brain functions to wane: “And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to cure him completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgical operation -- namely, to remove these irritant bodies" -- his eyes. One of the blind elders replied: "Thank Heaven for science!"
I was born sensoneurologically prelingustically deaf, which defined me in laymen terms as someone who couldn't hear a rocket go into space. Auditory aids of all kinds were tried and failed when hearing tests were run. I always thought that meant a pass, as it meant more silence to my world. In 1988, that perspective changed for my mother with the introduction of the Cochlear Implant by my Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor. The next eight years consisted of fighting with my mom, tampering with the device so it wouldn't work, telling the doctor I wanted it out of my head, and coming to a pleasant ending when I ran over the device with my newly bought car at age 16. As I felt the wheels crunching my device, I felt like Archangel in X-Men: The Last Stand when he spread his wings and flew out of his father's medical office in such a way that was provocative yet simplistic in reasoning (The Last Stand).
I was a victim of technology determinism when the cochlear implant industries began targeting parents with deaf children in the late 1980's and early 1990's. This technology was first documented in 1955 as an incident. The entire process from start to implantation in human subjects took approximately 25 years of collaboration with private firms and public sectors before it was released and made commercially available, as per the FDA's stringent requirement for medical devices. As medical practitioners encountered resistance with Deaf adults, they found a new market with hearing parents of deaf children. The majority of children who received implants had Medicare insurance which also made them an easy target.
When this technology was unveiled in the early 1990's in my side of the woods, it was the next big thing in the medical industry. The medical office became the first setting that a parent, notified of their child's hearing loss, experienced. While the parent was still reeling from shock that their child could not hear, the doctors took full advantage of this prime moment to reveal a miracle that restored their child's hearing. The doctor, often sadly uninformed, neglected to mention that there were other options available such as the usage of hearing aids, lifestyle adjustments, and cultural immersion that would benefit both the parent and child, and so forth. This has been very common in Western medicine practice to fix something that's broken.
As Professor Brown has mentioned in her Conesus and Controversy lecture: “western system that sees disease as a result of something being broken; a more mechanical view of medicine. The western system looks for what is broken then they try to fix it (Brown)” This statement has held and still holds true in the approach to a parent who has just discovered their child is deaf. The doctor has automatically perceived the deafness as a disease; an abnormality; and feels a societal need to fix the problem. If the doctor had suggested the child learn sign language and placed the family with the appropriate support services needed, then would the parent even consider a cochlear implant for their child in the first place?
Another issue of concern to me is the Nuremberg Code: “voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion” By this definition, how are babies as young as 10 months giving consent to be implanted? I know when I was 10 and asked if I wanted to hear I had a gut feeling of impending doom before I told her no. My answer wasn't taken into consideration from a medical perspective. The Nuremberg Code also states: “No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur” Where are the lawsuits from children who contracted spinal meningitis as a result of having a cochlear implant surgery? How about the sole fact that inserting a cochlear implant will effectively harm all the residual nerve contained within the cochlea which in turn removes all feasibility for the child to retain natural hearing?
With the emergence of social media and networking, it has become very easy for a person to videotape natural events without being caught. As a result of this, more videotapes of upset and distraught children being forced to put their ‘hearing aids' on are pouring in from grandmothers and other family members to make their way onto YouTube. Another neat thing that has been popping up as of lately and can be credited to social media: vlogs. Blogs signed in American Sign Language and viewed on the Internet via YouTube, Facebook, et al. Not only can the Deaf community and I view and object, we can also do a video response which greatly aids communication amongst the Deaf that do not write very well. Technology makes it much easier for us to debate the CI issue across the internet instead of reading/writing in a foreign language, while keeping in mind ASL is our mother tongue.
One current controversial example of this is titled Missoula Moanings and it shows a girl who has biaural cochlear implants (cochlear implant on both sides) writhing and crying on the bed while screaming at her grandmother. Further investigation reveals that the mother is using her daughter as a pawn to wage legal wars with the deaf father. The mother has already taken him to court and sued for custody because the father did not enforce cochlear implant usage on his daughter. The judge declared the girl was required to wear her cochlear implants at all times except when showering, swimming, or sleeping. The child, Emma, is evidently upset with what she has been forced to wear and does not like it. Even more disturbing are some of the comments about how Emma's rebellion must be a result of the dysfunctional home life she lives in, and others of how shocking the video was because it brings out the skeletons in the closet. There's no mention of what the child wants, how this judicial decision breaches the ethnicity as set forth in science and technology advancement, or what type of treatment Emma is going to require once she's a teenager.
A vlog done by Carl Schroeder told of his own experience growing up and watching his sister writhe on the floor when the teacher tried to force her to put on her hearing aids 50 years ago. Carl was deeply saddened that this same thing from his past was recently relived via YouTube. It caused him to doubt if anything will change 50 years from now in regards to treatment towards the Deaf children and forcing them against their will just as equally as I was in 1990. A quote in the comments field stands out and is written by an anonymous guest: “We are living in a psychological genocide of words and philosophies where the bullets are ‘choices" and "options'. These bullets lodge inside our Deaf souls, causing the slow death of our hope, our culture and our very souls. When we feel the dying, our biggest fear is to face the monster” (Unknown). Carl and this person are correct in the sense that a child should have consent and decide if they want to wear their ‘hearing aids, without force from an elder.
In conclusion, there is still technology present that violates several codes of ethics such as the Nuremberg Code, whether or not to force a child into wearing their auditory device, and so forth. The medical practitioners need to be educated in order to present a more fair and balanced approach to this subject. The approach is currently taking advantage of vulnerable parents with a one-sided approach that is both unfair and immoral.
We as individuals need to make choices for ourselves. However, it doesn't always work that way. Parents make myriad choices for their kids, as there are matters which cannot wait such as schooling choice, vaccinating your child, placement of the car seat in the front or back. With this mindset, it is easy to see how children as young as 10 months are implanted. It is vital that the parents be globally educated and shown both sides of the coin as a fair approach.
The claim that science has improved in technology and ethics is a complete lie because as science grows in leaps and bounds, people like me become unwilling captives of technology when doctors decide we have ears that are ‘broken' and even my simple ‘No' isn't sufficient.
