Europe counts the high cost of deafness:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Some E78m ($92m) is spent in Europe each year on patients with hearing impairment, European Commission figures suggest. This is higher than the combined costs of epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, spinal injury, strokes and Parkinson's disease, according to Cordis Focus, the Commission's newsletter. Over 22 million people in Europe have some kind of hearing impairment and of these some 3 million cannot hear any sound below 80-100 decibels. Some 50% of all hearing impairments have a genetic origin. There are 36 genes known to be associated with deafness. It appears that Connexin 26 is responsible for more than 30% of all deafness cases in Europe.