Deafies don’t wanna be cured, why should we?

kokonut said:
Well, I'm pretty sure that 95% or so of parents with a deaf baby would jump in a heart beat if there is in fact a natural biomedical procedure that will restore completely a baby's hearing loss. And when that day comes, bye bye deaf babies for they are to become bonafide hearing babies just like all the others born with their hearing intact. :hmm:
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kokonut has some good points. If I ever have children, even as a deaf dad id love to give my baby the best chance to hear. Of course id get a such procedure done on me too. People today get CI to hear better. Why should I not hear better when I want to? Id get a CI myself if I had no or very little residual hearing. But I have too much residual hearing that theres a real risk ill hear worse with CI and because im likley to lose that residual hearing, there's no going back to HAs. That's why I am waiting for future technology. I am open to the idea of CI if they can ever make CI not destroy any residual hearing or if I end up losing all my residual hearing.

Me and my parents don't believe in CI for those getting benefits from HAs. The cost is $50,000+ and the surgery has real risks and there's no guarantee if youll even hear better than you do with HAs if you have residual hearing. CI is not a cure anyway, in fact youll become MORE deaf since youll lose your residual hearing. I see CI as a great option for those with no or very little residual hearing. Those people even with the most powerful HAs programmed for max gains can barely even tell if their HA is on or off. CI makes no sense for those with so much residual hearing that they can get to 25db or better aided.
 
I think I get Karissa's point...people who look deafness as something to be cured are likely to hold a superior attitude over those who are deaf. The majority of society has never really given deaf people the benefit of doubt..just treats them as inferior. If people would stop focusing so much on seeing deaness as a defect then maybe discrimination won't be as rampant. Deaf people just want to be treated as equal but I don't see that happening anytime soon due to all these attitudes out there.
 
shel90 said:
According to this link, the quote that the blogger found was most appropriate was Deafilmedia's...anyone remember this member? What a character she was! :lol:

I had totally forgotten about her. I enjoyed her posts. :)
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Oh yeah. I also remember that thread well.
 
shel90 said:
I think I get Karissa's point...people who look deafness as something to be cured are likely to hold a superior attitude over those who are deaf. The majority of society has never really given deaf people the benefit of doubt..just treats them as inferior. If people would stop focusing so much on seeing deaness as a defect then maybe discrimination won't be as rampant. Deaf people just want to be treated as equal but I don't see that happening anytime soon due to all these attitudes out there.
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Should a cure not be found for blindness or other vision impairments as well?

As for deafness, the Deaf culture/community does not hold a monopoly over deafness nor do they have a say that a cure for hearing loss is not needed for the rest of the population with hearing loss. With 33 million people with hearing loss, 96% of that population of people with hearing loss from mild to profound are people who are deaf and hard of hearing and not culturally deaf people. Each to his/her own when it comes to wanting one's hearing loss restored should a cure be found someday. The same idea and thrust goes for people with a variety of vision ailments and impairments. If there's a sure fire cure, people will come. And it will be unstopable. End of story.
 
kokonut said:
Should a cure not be found for blindness or other vision impairments as well?

As for deafness, the Deaf culture/community does not hold a monopoly over deafness nor do they have a say that a cure for hearing loss is not needed for the rest of the population with hearing loss. With 33 million people with hearing loss, 96% of that population of people with hearing loss from mild to profound are people who are deaf and hard of hearing and not culturally deaf people. Each to his/her own when it comes to wanting one's hearing loss restored should a cure be found someday. The same idea and thrust goes for people with a variety of vision ailments and impairments. If there's a sure fire cure, people will come. And it will be unstopable. End of story.
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Ummm..u seemed to miss my point and no, it is not the end of the story for me. Maybe for u, but for me, nope. The story continues.
 
kokonut said:
I know that there are people who do not want to be cured. No where have I implied nor inferred that people need to be forced to be cured of their blindness, deafness, or what have you. Are you in any way trying to infer that I am suggesting that people be forced to have them cured of a condition or "deficiency"?
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What the hell? I know you didn't say people forced to be cured, and I didn't say a such thing, either. I only asked you a few questions cos of how the way you wrote.
 
shel90 said:
I think I get Karissa's point...people who look deafness as something to be cured are likely to hold a superior attitude over those who are deaf. The majority of society has never really given deaf people the benefit of doubt..just treats them as inferior. If people would stop focusing so much on seeing deaness as a defect then maybe discrimination won't be as rampant. Deaf people just want to be treated as equal but I don't see that happening anytime soon due to all these attitudes out there.
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Indeed, mostly, deaf people is still treated unequally as always. Nobody will care. It just sucks. =/
 
KarissaMann05 said:
Indeed, mostly, deaf people is still treated unequally as always. Nobody will care. It just sucks. =/
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Luckily there r still plenty of hearing people who really care and really treat deaf people with respect...those are the ones I cherish.

For the ones who don't care or even delebetary (gosh iam stuck on how to spell that word..lol) go out of their way to belittle deaf people are the ones I don't care for.

I wish a majority were like those hearing people whom I cherish.
 
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Aye. I will always cherish the ones that treat me with respect. Unfortunately a lot of them are around my age. :laugh2: Would be nice to come across a few that are the stereotypical employers' age that have the same air of equality around them.

I never figured out why people would deliberately set out to remind D/deaf people of their differences in a cruel manner. But there's quite a few of them.
 
shel90 said:
Ummm..u seemed to miss my point and no, it is not the end of the story for me. Maybe for u, but for me, nope. The story continues.
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Um, "end of story" meaning that once it becomes unstoppable, that is a cure is available, it'll just continue to gather steam as more and more people born deaf will grow up as a hearing person.
 
We don't want to be cured because we have the answer to our deafness - ASL. The hearing people (most of them) have this problem with ASL and want to get rid of ASL and gave us their version of their answer to our deafness - HA/CI. I still can't believe they see us as dumb when they can't even learn ASL!!! Obviously it is far easier for them to learn ASL then us to learn to speak properly.
 
kokonut said:
Um, "end of story" meaning that once it becomes unstoppable, that is a cure is available, it'll just continue to gather steam as more and more people born deaf will grow up as a hearing person.
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That is your pipe dream, but not ours. You just don't get it. :roll:
 
Buffalo said:
We don't want to be cured because we have the answer to our deafness - ASL. The hearing people (most of them) have this problem with ASL and want to get rid of ASL and gave us their version of their answer to our deafness - HA/CI. I still can't believe they see us as dumb when they can't even learn ASL!!! Obviously it is far easier for them to learn ASL then us to learn to speak properly.
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:gpost: :gpost: :gpost:
 
I agree with Buffalo.

I am deafblind. I am happy to accept that. I wish they would stop researching into cures for deafness and blindness. I wish they would just reasearch serious conditions like cancer or cronic pain. Without animal testing of course and that definiately is possible.
 
In order to do that, we need to change the mindsets who see deafness as a loss that people can't live without.

Unfortunately, once they figure out how to restore deafness or blindness completely, it will marginalised the population even more. I am fine with being deaf and blind all of my life, however I do understand hearing and seeing people don't see it that way.

I am not against biological "cures," however I really do wish people stop promoting irreversible bionic technology. I predict that once scientists figure out how to restore hearing loss and sight loss COMPLETELY via biotechnology, the ones with CIs will be heavily marginalised like non-CI peeps currently are because they won't be able to get those treatments.

Anything less than perfection or "normal" is just cruel, because then those people are categorised more along the line of mentally slow or having a learning disability rather than being accepted as deaf or hard-of-hearing. Believe me, there is an entirely different reaction to people who admit they have CI, and people who admit they are deaf. The ones that won't admit they're deaf get treated worse than we do because hearing people assume that they are completely fixed, and anything else is probably a different problem going on.
 
Bebonang said:
That is your pipe dream, but not ours. You just don't get it. :roll:
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Oh, believe me. I get it. Nothing about a pipe dream. Just the fact that biotechnology is moving fast. When it comes to nerve regeneration that's one of the fastest field of study using stem cells. As for hearing loss, we're a decade away of knowing exactly how far off or close we are to seeing tangible results. Though in the past when it comes to biotechnology it has surprised us on the speed of new discoveries and applications. FDA approval for human trials may take 7 to 15 years...sooo...but that's for the United States and does not discount other countries who could possibly leapfrog ahead of the United States in this race. So, we could be looking at 20 to 30 years til something tangible come about. Then again biotechnology moves fast, especially if there is a large market it could tap into. With 30+ million people with hearing loss in the U.S. alone makes it a very good market to tap into. So, essentially it is not a pipe dream any more than progress being made to repair spinal cord injuries so that people can walk again.
Stem Cell Research Video- Spinal Cord Injury | Adult Stem Cell Research
 
kokonut said:
Oh, believe me. I get it. Nothing about a pipe dream. Just the fact that biotechnology is moving fast. When it comes to nerve regeneration that's one of the fastest field of study using stem cells. As for hearing loss, we're a decade away of knowing exactly how far off or close we are to seeing tangible results. Though in the past when it comes to biotechnology it has surprised us on the speed of new discoveries and applications. FDA approval for human trials may take 7 to 15 years...sooo...but that's for the United States and does not discount other countries who could possibly leapfrog ahead of the United States in this race. So, we could be looking at 20 to 30 years til something tangible come about. Then again biotechnology moves fast, especially if there is a large market it could tap into. With 30+ million people with hearing loss in the U.S. alone makes it a very good market to tap into. So, essentially it is not a pipe dream any more than progress being made to repair spinal cord injuries so that people can walk again.
Stem Cell Research Video- Spinal Cord Injury | Adult Stem Cell Research
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I agree with your posts, see my replies to you in earlier posts.

I asked my brother if he would like his colorblindness cured and says he doesn't care so probably not.

I think many/most people born with disabilities don't want to be cured unless it's to save their life.

However those who become disabled late in life usually want a cure. Someone born blind has no idea what he's missing so he doesn't see the need for a cure. But the majority of people who become blind(disease, accident, genes) later in life would give almost anything to see again, even if not all their vision can be restored.

Most people today with CI are deaf babies(some are now grown up) and late deafened teens/adults. But im seeing some who were born deaf but raised orally in a hearing world desire a CI to better fit in the hearing world. I myself am waiting for a cure that can partially or even fully restore my hearing and my reasons are much like the reasons people get CIs today.

There's alot of audiologists and hearing people that pressure deaf people to get a CI. They say "wow you are missing out, get a CI dude and enjoy the world of sound" When a cure/treatment comes out, the pressure will intensify 10x.

I will be more than happy to participate in clinical trial(s) after I see it working on people who get it a year or two before me and I see results, numbers and safety.

Yes we will certainly know ALOT more about stem cells in 10 years. I expect stem cells(and perhaps other procedures) to be practiced on the deaf by 2020. It's already being done experimentally outside America on a very small number of people(see my blog) and one guy's hearing improved perhaps 40db!

I know alot of Deaf(big D) people are upset about this. Hey, no one can physically force you to be cured or get a CI for the matter. You have the choice NOT to get anything as much as we have a choice to get whatever we want(provided we are candidates) agree?
 
Bebonang said:
You know what. I think you all are dreaming of having our deafness cure which it is not that easy to do and never will do because it is not going to work, no way. There is no cure at all to be full hearing like the hearing people. You all, hearing, late deafend and HOH, will have to accept deafness the way it is. So don't keep trying to "fix" us to be like the hearing. We are very adapt to it and we are getting frustrated with hearing people trying to "fix" us to be like hearing people in a mainstream school with no accommodations like notetakers and sign language interpreter without the FM machines plus the microphone. Science is not going to help us anyway, no matter what. I do not want deafness or Deafness disappear, because we are very comfortable with ASL. I think this is God's way to let us be who we are and God wants hearing people to accept us, Deafies, to be the way we are. Don't tell me it is the Devil. I don't believe that at all. You can not make the world be perfect and no one on Earth is perfect. Just accept it. :roll:
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I am in total agreement with you, Bebonang!
 
souggy said:
In order to do that, we need to change the mindsets who see deafness as a loss that people can't live without.

Unfortunately, once they figure out how to restore deafness or blindness completely, it will marginalised the population even more. I am fine with being deaf and blind all of my life, however I do understand hearing and seeing people don't see it that way.

I am not against biological "cures," however I really do wish people stop promoting irreversible bionic technology. I predict that once scientists figure out how to restore hearing loss and sight loss COMPLETELY via biotechnology, the ones with CIs will be heavily marginalised like non-CI peeps currently are because they won't be able to get those treatments.

Anything less than perfection or "normal" is just cruel, because then those people are categorised more along the line of mentally slow or having a learning disability rather than being accepted as deaf or hard-of-hearing. Believe me, there is an entirely different reaction to people who admit they have CI, and people who admit they are deaf. The ones that won't admit they're deaf get treated worse than we do because hearing people assume that they are completely fixed, and anything else is probably a different problem going on.
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Yes, that was the whole point of my post # 22. All about the mindset by society against deafness and others.
 
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