The Sacramento Bee
on January 21 published a column written by a hearing aids company
executive. Titled “E-cigarettes may also
cause hearing loss” (here),
the piece asserted that “damage to inner ear of teen [sic] is an overlooked
potential health risk to vaping” and that “nicotine – regardless of whether it
is inhaled in smoke or in vapor – presents a significant risk to hearing.”
These claims are fallacious.
On January 27, the newspaper published my correction online:
“There is virtually
no scientific evidence to support Dave Fabry's claim. I conducted a search of Medline, which
contains journal citations and abstracts for biomedical literature from around
the world for the period 1946-2016.
Nicotine is identified as a topic in 22,218 medical publications, and
hearing loss is identified in 11,984 articles.
There are only two articles matching both terms: a 1956 article on
vitamin therapy of chronic deafness published in Italian, and a 1964 article
entitled "Are You Smoking More But Hearing Less?" It is almost impossible for Dave Fabry's
claim to be valid if these two articles are the only relevant scientific
publications in the world's biomedical literature for the past 70 years.”
Days later, the Bee
deleted the correction but left other comments.
Reader Jim McDonald observed:
“Why did you delete
Dr. Rodu's comments? He did a search for studies on this topic, going back to
1946 and found nothing to support Mr. Fabry's claim. Dr. Rodu is a professor at
the School of Medicine at the University of Louisville. That seems relevant.
“You also deleted
mine from earlier today. I was not disrespectful.
“If you print
opinions and offer a place for comment, you should expect opposing points of
view.”
Nicotine has nothing to do with hearing loss, but smoking
might worsen age-related impairment (here, here and here) via damage to
small blood vessels in the ear.
Kudos to Mr. McDonald and another reader who brought the
deletion to my attention. The newspaper
erred in publishing fake news, then compounded its mistake by suppressing
truthful corrective responses.
