July 17, 2010
· Filed under Cochlear Implants, Politics and Advocacy
Yesterday, I read an article in the newspaper about the drug Avandia, which is used to help control diabetes. Apparently, the FDA caught the company that makes the drug with prior knowledge that the drug caused a risk of heart atacks. The company knew about this, but chose to keep it quiet. Why? Money, of course. If people knew there was a heart attack risk associated with the drug, they wouldn’t be able to sell the drug, and possibly the FDA would not have approved it in the first place.
A company withholding information potentially harmful to the public. This is just like the cochear implant companies — Advanced Bionics, Cochlear America, and others that produce cochear implants — they have a monetary interest in selling their products. What do they know that they’re not telling us? What do they know about the risks? They claim the CI is a success, but do they have research they’re hiding that shows it’s really not that successful? They hype it as a success, but it’s possible that it’s really not all that successful. What information are they sitting on? I bet they have information that we don’t know, but later on down the road, we will be disgusted to know that they hadn’t told us about it.
That’s why I support an independent investigation into CIs on their risks, success rates, and so on. The FDA is NOT doing their job. And the CI companies WON’T do an honest job!
For YouTube version, Click Here
Reference: Washington Post: Glaxo-Smith-Kline knew of heart attack risks
July 14, 2010
· Filed under Cochlear Implants, Deaf Education, Oralism/Auditory-Verbal Therapy, Politics and Advocacy
Transcript:
Parents want the best for their children, naturally. They want to see their children have a successful future and a good life. Everybody knows that. And who especially knows that? People who make products aimed at parents, preying on their fears, paranoia and concern. They sell things that really have no validity to them.
For example, there is an article in the link provided below. This article is about several different products being sold to parents like knee pads for babies learning to crawl, in order to “help” them learn to crawl earlier and faster. Or speakers attached to the belly of a pregnant woman through which music or vocabulary is played, supposedly stimulating the baby’s intelligence. There are videos and DVDs for babies to watch on TV, but of course, the research shows babies learn most from interactions with parents. But these people take advantage of parents by hyping the TV videos as “better”. There are many such products. These people are trying to “get rich quick” by telling parents “your child will be stupid!”
So what’s my point? Many do the same thing with parents of Deaf children. They tell parents “your child will be Deaf and dumb if s/he doesn’t learn how to talk. lipread, or can’t hear! S/he will be Deaf and dumb!” And of course parents freak out at that thought and don’t want that for their child. And they use that fear to sell: oral programs (AVT), hearing aids, cochlear implants, audiological services and tests, speech therapy, and it goes on and on. But does selling those services and products really help the Deaf child? Not necessarily so. But parents think it will because these people have preyed on the parents’ fears, their opinions, all in order to increase their own profits. And if the child turns out not to be successful? They then turn around and say “too bad! I’ve already made my money!”
Reference: “Get Rich Quick: Your child is dumb!”
For YouTube Version, Click HERE
February 27, 2010
· Filed under All things ASL, Cochlear Implants
I came up with this variation on the old “Timber!” joke after assigning the joke to my students to practice.
For YouTube Version: Click Here
July 8, 2009
· Filed under Audism, Cochlear Implants, Politics and Advocacy
Ever since my vlog “I understand the CI! The child IS Deaf!“, I have been bothered by the attitude of some parents who seem to reject us as Deaf adults who have something to teach them and their children about the experience of being Deaf and look down on us as Deaf people. This vlog is NOT addressed to those parents who DO understand the importance of sign language for their children and respect us as Deaf people and want to work with us for the betterment of their children. In the vlog, I show some of the comments some parents have made and why these comments make us Deaf people angry and want to speak out.
For YouTube version: Click Here
July 4, 2009
· Filed under Cochlear Implants, Legislation & Community Activism, Politics and Advocacy
The organization “Audism-Free America” (AFA) recently circulated a petition to encourage the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin an independent investigation into the effectiveness of the cochlear implant for young Deaf children. While I support this idea of an independent investigation, I wonder if the FDA is the right people to be asking to do this. In this post, I discuss some reasons why, and suggest some additional pathways that AFA might take in order to achieve their goal of getting an independent investigation done.
P.S. — Happy 4th of July, everybody!
For YouTube version, click here
Additional Information on the FDA and its shortcomings:
June 4, 2009
· Filed under Cochlear Implants, In Search of Deafhood
I recently had the opportunity to go on my daughter’s end-of-the field trip to a bowling alley. It so happens that my daughter’s class has a girl with a CI in it, and that girl was in the group my daughter was bowling with, so I took the opportunity to observe how a kid with a CI can function in a public school setting. I share my observations with you in the vlog.
June 4, 2009
· Filed under Cochlear Implants, In Search of Deafhood
I’ve been in discussions with NACPAC, a Deaf person from a Deaf family who has a child with a CI. She sent me this description of the CI from the perspective of her child’s Speech-Language Pathologist, who also knows ASL. I have no problems with this description — it fits with everything I know about the CI. But one thing struck me while reading it — the CI child is ME! I tell you how that is in the vlog.
The picture above is me, circa 1969. If you look closely, you can see I’m wearing my hearing aids (old body aids) to the beach!
June 2, 2009
· Filed under Cochlear Implants, Legislation & Community Activism, Oralism/Auditory-Verbal Therapy
I just read this article in Newsweek in which an advocate for his group made some comments. I will show you the quotes, and you can try to guess whether he is talking about Deaf people or not. It was a very interesting article, and has some interesting observations and ideas for us to think about for ourselves.
May 1, 2009
· Filed under Cochlear Implants, Politics and Advocacy
Tools are useful things. But it is important to look at the motivation behind a tool — not only how it is used, but why it was developed. A gun is a tool whose only purpose is to hurt or kill living things. Nuclear energy is a tool that can be used for producing electrical power or as a weapon of mass destruction. In this vlog, I take a look at some other tools and examine how they can be or have been used. This raises the question of what the motivation behind the development of a “tool” being used within the Deaf community really is.
References:
April 27, 2009
· Filed under Cochlear Implants, Politics and Advocacy
The Cochlear Implant is here to stay! So just shut up, accept it and move on! This is a refrain that I keep seeing around Deaf Read (most recently by HarleyLady and Amy Cohen Efron). Here is my response to this idea.
