Unreliable reports have linked the COVID-19 vaccines to some people's sudden loss of hearing. But a recent Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine study has found no evidence to support a connection to the three approved shots.
Researchers monitoring the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) didn't find the incidence of sudden hearing loss elevated. The incidences of hearing loss might be lower than expected after vaccination.
"We're not finding a signal," said Eric J. Formeister, MD, MS, a neurotology fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, and the first author of the US study, which appeared February 24 in JAMA Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery.
Another indication of no connection: If hearing loss were linked to the vaccines, researchers would expect an increase in the number of complaints with an increase in the number of doses administered. The opposite was true.
"The rate of reports per 100,000 doses decreased across the vaccination period, despite large concomitant increases in the absolute number of vaccine doses administered per week," the researchers reported.
