Ear whacks

Opal Sandy, from the United Kingdom, was born deaf like her older sister, Nora. Doctors said those with the condition inherited a mutated OTOF gene from their parents.

Their mother, Jo, told ABC News that her babies never responded to the loudest banging of massive drums and cymbals behind their heads.

At 11 months, Opal underwent an experimental therapy called DB-OTO gene therapy, the youngest to get it. Doctors placed a cochlear implant in her left ear and a copy of the OTOF gene was injected into her right cochlea in 2023.

On 12 October, Regeneron, the New York-based pharmaceutical company looking into DB-OTO therapy, announced that 11 of the 12 patients in the clinical trial, including Opal, experienced “clinically meaningful” improvements in hearing “within weeks” of the 15-minute procedure, and many continue to see progress to this day, ABC News reports.

Meanwhile, a makeup artist in Chennai, India tried the herbal treatment of a beauty parlor to reduce the size of her enlarged ear piercings in March 2023.

When staff of the Abbe Herbal Beauty Parlor in Arumbakkam applied the herbal mix on V Jayanthi’s ears, she felt a burning sensation, but she was assured it was part of the procedure, the Times of India (ToI) reports.

At the next session, more chemicals were applied and the earlobes were wrapped in plaster. Jayanthi later noticed a foul smell and, after a month, she found her earlobes torn and hanging by a thin layer of tissue, according to ToI.

Parlor owner Akilandeshwari brought Jayanthi to the Apollo Hospitals at Vanagaram and doctors there found the herbal mixture contained trichloroacetic acid, a corrosive substance, ToI reports.

A consumer forum last month ordered the parlor owner to compensate Jayanthi 500,000 rupees (P300,000) for the injury she suffered.