COVID-19 vaccines don’t cause sudden hearing loss, study finds
When you administer tens of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccine, you’re bound to get reports of all kinds of side effects.That includes accounts of sudden hearing loss.
Doctors at Johns Hopkins University treated some of the people whose hearing suffered in the wake of a COVID-19 shot, and it made them wonder whether the vaccine really could have been responsible. So they decided to investigate.
Their verdict: The vaccine wasn’t to blame. The timing of the hearing loss was just a coincidence, according to a report published Thursday in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.
The condition in question is known as sudden sensorineural hearing loss, or SSNHL. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications Disorders describes it as “an unexplained, rapid loss of hearing either all at once or over a few days.” It typically affects just one ear — in particular, the sensory organs of the inner ear. In about half of cases, hearing returns on its own to some extent within a couple of weeks.
Experts aren’t sure how common the condition is. The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery estimates that for every 100,000 people, between 5 and 27 come down with the condition each year. About 66,000 new cases are reported annually,the academy says.
The NIDCD, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, says new cases arise at a rate of 20 to 120 per 100,000 people per year. And it notes that many cases are probably never reported to doctors because patients mistakenly presume their hearing was affected by a temporary condition, such as a sinus infection, allergies or a buildup of earwax.
In reality, SSNHL can be triggered by a range of things, including head trauma, infections (or some of the drugs used to treatthem), an autoimmune disease or problems with blood circulation. In nine out of 10 cases, doctors and patients never figureout what brought it on.
Flu shots were once blamed for cases of sudden hearing loss, but a 2016 study in the Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery journal was unable to detect a link between the condition and vaccines for influenza or anything else.
The patients who came to Johns Hopkins had their sudden hearing loss confirmed with audiometric testing. All of them were affected in just one ear, and it occurred within 24 hours of getting a dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
—Los Angeles Times
Prosecutors deny claim that medical examiner's opinion on Floyd death was coerced
MINNEAPOLIS — Prosecutors denounced and denied Thursday a claim of witness coercion made by a fired Minneapolis police officer expected to stand trial next year in George Floyd's murder.
Tou Thao's allegations are "specious" and "just the latest iteration of his desperate smear campaign against the state," prosecutor Matthew Frank wrote in the sharp 15-page response on behalf of Attorney General Keith Ellison's office.
In a filing two weeks ago, Thao's attorneys Robert and Natalie Paule claimed that the Hennepin County chief medical examiner Andrew Baker was coerced into altering his autopsy results and that prosecutors knew.
In response, Paule said, "I stand behind every word in my motion. I'll do my talking in court."
The lawyers said former Washington, D.C., medical examiner, Dr. Roger Mitchell, coerced Baker into including "neck compression"as part of Floyd's cause of death. The lawyers said the state then did nothing and allowed Baker to testify in the trial of Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of murder and manslaughter in Floyd's death in April.
Thao, along with former officers J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, is charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd's death. They are set for trial March 7 in Hennepin County District Court. Thao is the officer who was keeping the increasingly upset onlookers away as the others held Floyd on the ground.
Frank outright denied Thao's allegations and accused the defense lawyers of bad faith. "To make false accusations of coercion against the state in an attempt to tarnish professional reputations, taint the jury pool, and advance defendants' interests in the public eye is beyond the pale," he wrote.
Frank encouraged Judge Peter Cahill to "remind defense counsel of his obligation to refrain from frivolous motion practice."
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
ICE to close Georgia detention center where immigrant women alleged medical abuse
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will close two immigration detention centers in Georgia and Massachusetts that are under federal investigation for alleged abuse of detained immigrants, including the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia wherescores of women said they suffered medical abuse.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday to stop detaining immigrants at Irwin “as soon as possible and consistent with any legal obligations,” and to do the same at the C. Carlos Carreiro Immigration Detention Center in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, as well as terminate an agreement with the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office in Massachusetts “that is no longer operationally needed.”
As of April 22, the Irwin County facility in Ocilla, Georgia, no longer held any immigrant women, after dozens ultimately stepped forward to report unnecessary medical procedures conducted by a local gynecologist, which the women said were performed without their consent, according to Los Angeles Times reporting. Several women were deported after speaking out publicly or testifying to federal investigators about their experience with the gynecologist, Dr. Mahendra Amin, who denies the allegations and remains under criminal investigation.
A number of the women say they continue to suffer after-effects from the procedures and still do not know what exactly was done to them.
Mayorkas instructed that any evidence at Irwin be preserved for “ongoing investigations,” and that, if necessary, remaining ICE personnel and detained immigrants be relocated.
“Allow me to state one foundational principle: We will not tolerate the mistreatment of individuals in civil immigration detention or substandard conditions of detention,” Mayorkas said in a memo to ICE acting Director Tae Johnson directing the closure of the sites, according to a statement.
—Los Angeles Times
Iran’s Rouhani says deal reached to remove most sanctions
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said world powers have accepted that major sanctions on his country — including those affecting oil, banking and shipping — would be lifted, triggering a drop in crude prices.
Negotiators in Vienna, where Iran and the U.S. have engaged in indirect talks to restore a troubled nuclear deal from 2015,have taken a “major step,” Rouhani said Thursday, according to Iranian state TV. “The main agreement has been made.”
Diplomats are still discussing “details and finer points” before there’s “a final agreement,” he said.
The comments echo those on Wednesday from the European Union’s top envoy in Vienna, who said he was “quite sure” a of a “final agreement, not far from here.”
Iran’s already preparing its oil fields so it can ramp up exports if sanctions are eased.
Under the most optimistic forecasts, the country would be able to increase production to 4 million barrels a day from around 2.4 million in a few months. Analysts at Citigroup Inc. said it’s more likely that Washington will allow Tehran to boost exports by 500,000 barrels a day from the middle of the third quarter. The U.S. would want to see evidence of Iran abiding by the terms of the deal before allowing more shipments, the Wall Street bank said.
Negotiators ended their latest round of talks on Wednesday. The EU and Russia said they were close to finalizing a document outlining how the U.S. would return to the accord, which former President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018, and how Iran would scale-back its nuclear program.
Iran holds presidential elections on June 18 and Rouhani, who’s served a two-term limit, will step down around two months later. His government is keen to strike a deal before the vote.
—Bloomberg News
