Welcome to Definite Hearing news. Today we are going to talk about the deregulation of hearing
aids. Why am I so serious. Well this is a serious topic but hey if you're new, my name is Emily,
I created Definite Hearing as a way to increase awareness for the deaf and hard of hearing,
I do this because I'm hard of hearing myself. I want to increase awareness for the deaf and
hard of hearing because I love the hearing and Deaf community, but I find myself in the middle
as a hard of hearing person, I use hearing devices to hear. I wear hearing aids, and I love them
so so so so so much. I also created this channel to kind of help those that have a hearing loss
and are trying to figure out how to navigate it. People may be looking for hearing aids
people that have had hearing aids for a long time, like me, and also I created this channel
for hearing people so that they can know how to help their heart of hearing, loved ones. I hope
you stick around to the end of this video because if you do I'm going to share my thoughts on the
Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act. Alright so let's start with the facts, the Over-the-Counter Hearing
Aid Act was created to enable adults with mild to moderate hearing losses to receive hearing aids
without needing a doctor's note or physician's consent. The Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act
was part of the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017. It was supported by Senator Elizabeth Warren from
Massachusetts, and Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa, it was a bipartisan piece of legislation.
Iit was passed in the House on July 12 and subsequently passed in the Senate
on August 3. So what is the big deal about this act? Why does it matter? This Act requires that
the FDA creates a category of over-the-counter hearing aids to ensure that they meet the same
quality standards that we have in our big six brands to ensure that these hearing aids, though
they'll cost less, have the same customer safety levels, labeling and manufacturing protections
that high end hearing aids have. Within the act, they've required the FDA to create this plan this
over-the-counter hearing aid plan within three years. Okay, let's do the math, that was in 2017,
it's 2021. It has been over three years, the FDA has failed to make a ruling on this they were
supposed to do it in August of 2020, granted due to COVID they said hey we couldn't do this. I’m
sorry, honestly, to me they had three years to do it and they still haven't done it. It sounds like
me when I was in college and I just waited until the last minute to do my homework.
So clearly we need some help on this. The FDA has not brought that OTC regulation standards to
the table, and there are some heated debates about this. The American Speech Language Hearing
Association, or ASHA, has expressed concern in the over-the-counter hearing aid act,
why would they do this? ASHA President Gail Richard said that greater degrees of hearing loss
are serious medical conditions with broader health implications, ASHA also expressed the concern that
people with moderate losses to severe could not receive the help that they need by just getting
over-the-counter hearing aids. Hearing aids are not a one size fits all solution, everyone's ears
are different everyone's losses are different people can have different losses in different
frequencies, the hearing aids need to be tuned, And if people do not visit a doctor to program
the hearing aids or they're not programming them properly, they are missing out on what they don't
know. So ASHA definitely expressed their concerns and said, over-the-counter hearing aids are
not a good idea. You have people that will get these hearing aids and will just turn them on,
but won't know how to fine tune them based on the mapping and everything...
I can see where they're coming from because with a hearing loss, I don't know what I don't hear,
and so if I took an over-the-counter hearing aid and just put it in my ear, I would feel like I was
hearing, but I don't know what I wasn't hearing, and then based on the feedback from my family
members and friends that they said like, Hey, you're wearing those hearing aids but it doesn't
seem like they're working, that I would probably just think like why am I wasting my money I'm just
not gonna wear these at all when you've heard things and you don't hear things muscle memory
in your brain, with your ears and your hearing and your auditory lingual pathway, it suffers atrophy,
it goes through this experience where it was being worked like a muscle, all of a sudden that pathway
is not being worked and it can lead to decreases in cognitive ability, studies have shown that
failure to eight a hearing loss can lead to dementia. It's a big deal. and like ASHA said, it
can impair people's ability to stay cognitively sharp, if they don't have the proper hearing
settings. Well if we don't have over-the-counter hearing aids that are readily accessible for
people that they just don't get hearing aids in the first place, and they never get that
access to that sound so there are two sides to the coin and two sides to the story. Now going
back to the fact that it is 2021 and we still don't have these FDA regulations that they were
supposed to have back in 2017 That's concerning. Devin Frank, a PhD at Harvard University recently
commented about this FDA failure to deliver and said, “As medical providers we fully appreciate
the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic has on all sectors of healthcare, however this inaction and
OTC hearing aids is leaving millions of Americans without the necessary devices they were promised
and will benefit through the implementation of this law,” so doctors have been like “Hello FDA,
like we know you've been swamped with COVID But you have four years to do this so you kind of
need to come up with some regulations.” I'm so glad you stuck around to the end of this video,
there are the facts mingled with a couple of my like opinions and statements, but I just want
to kind of wrap up with my definite opinion so here's my definite opinion, the over-the-counter
hearing aid act means that, and consumers will have access to mild to moderate hearing aids, and
I understand why that would be you don't need an audiologist, you don't need a doctor to do that,
whatever. My problem with this is we kind of already have this in place. You can go to an
ear nose and throat doctor they say “hey you need hearing aids go down to Miracle Ear or a hearing
aid dispenser and go get some hearing aids. People can go get hearing aids already they can talk to
a doctor who's an ear doctor and go get hearing aids out of dispensers place, the best place to
go get hearing aids is with the audiologist like an ear nose and throat doctor knows the
ear but they don't understand sound within the ear, they don't understand mapping the hearing,
they don't do that that's not within their specialty, and the dispenser doesn't do that,
either this law, in my opinion, obsolete. I get that we need cheaper hearing aids,
but I don't think that there should be, people, distributing them, that don't know about
ears and hearing, if you've been on my channel for a while you know that I really like audiologists,
I preach go to the audiologist, because audiologists go to school, to understand how you
hear when you go and talk to an audiologist they map your hearing, they see what you are hearing
and fit the hearing aid to meet those needs of what you're not hearing, if you just go buy an
off the shelf over-the-counter hearing aid and put it in, it will not be the same, it can never
be the same as getting a hearing aid through a licensed audiologist, so then I could get into
the deeper side of this. I am an entrepreneur at heart, I believe in the free market economy.
I do believe that some regulations are needed. However, the FDA is creating these
over-the-counter hearing aid laws and they're the same FDA that says that you can have free range
eggs from free range chickens, if you want to talk to PETA go talk to them about it, so I kind of,
I'm all over the place. I am so all over the place because I also hate to think of people not
having access to hearing aids. I have personally participated in testifying for regulation to get
private insurance to cover hearing devices, like, I think people should have access to those devices
and they think that they should be reasonably priced, and so I really torn about this, as you
can tell, as far as the over-the-counter, hearing aid act itself. I don't think it was necessary,
but I also think that the FDA needs to do their job and get those regulations together, and so
people that will benefit from that. It's better for them to have a hearing aid in my opinion, than
not have one, if they want one. And so I hope that makes sense. I would love to hear your thoughts on
the over-the-counter hearing aid app down below, is it something that you've been looking forward
to. If so, why, what are some things you hope that they include in the over-the-counter regulations,
please share in the comments below, and if you haven't already please like this video
and subscribe to my channel. I look forward to making more awesome content for you.
Until next time, stay strong. Stay amazing, and have a great day. Bye. Oh, that's like such.
Enjoy. I can't wait to see your thoughts in the comments.