A ‘miracle cure’ for deafness? For people like me, here’s why that isn’t our dream

As someone who has been hard of hearing since I was a teenager, I read with great interest about the case of Opal Sandy – the 18-month-old British toddler who has recently had her hearing “restored” in a pioneering medical trial.

Opal was born with auditory neuropathy, which is caused by the disruption of nerve impulses travelling from the inner ear to the brain, and which left her completely deaf. But after taking part in what is being heralded as a “groundbreaking” gene therapy trial at Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge, she can now hear almost perfectly.

It’s fantastic news that this little girl can now hear. She will no longer have to go through the negative situations that people with hearing loss often face. She won’t experience being self-conscious about her hearing, as I did as an adolescent, nor the difficulties of meeting new people, such as having to ask them to repeat themselves again and again. She won’t miss out on job progression because of her hearing loss. What is often required to get on in a company...