Latest news with #LaraWilliams
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Learning to live with the torture of tinnitus
One night, I heard a dripping tap. I asked my husband to check all the taps – upstairs bathroom, downstairs toilet, the kitchen. He assured me there were no dripping taps. He refused to check again. We argued. I checked. I desperately wanted to find the source of the noise. Nothing. What was that sound? Where was it coming from? I tried to ignore it. Then I was told. My husband, a GP, explained – calmly, with all the understanding he could muster – that I had tinnitus, like Lara Williams (A moment that changed me: on the day of my first book deal, a mysterious hum overcame me, 6 August). How did I get it? Where had it come from? He couldn't tell me. 'It just comes,' he said. I hated him. I didn't sleep at all that night, nor the night after. The noise was unbearable. On the third night, I remember standing on the landing, crying. I was filled with rage. Then my son, David, came to the rescue. He put his headphones on my head, and a beautiful sound replaced the racket in my ears. It was How Deep Is Your Love by the Bee Gees. Tears still streamed down, but I began to feel a sense of calm. I stopped hearing the awful noise. I listened to the Bee Gees, Puccini and Chopin. I listened myself to sleep. I taught myself relaxation techniques. But when the noise becomes unbearable, then I need all my techniques – music, poetry etc – to calm down and ignore the falling bombs, the dripping tap, the loud drums. It's hard. But I can do it. And I want to tell people who suffer from this terrible condition: accept it. Forget the anger. Don't ask why. Don't think you've been punished. You haven't. Just learn to cope with it as best as you Ursi AmesburyBristol I have suffered with tinnitus for nearly 10 years, following an incident of uncontrolled loud music in a badly run venue. The resulting damage ended my musical performance and teaching career, and left me in a state of grief that will be with me until the day I die. While it is true to say that habituation does occur in time, it is no substitute for not damaging one's hearing in the first place. Even though I am as habituated as I can ever expect to be, the tinnitus still dominates my life and activities. It impairs my sleep, and makes socialising difficult and listening to or making music impossible. I urge gig-goers, venues and musicians to take great care, because to wake up one day and realise that irreparable damage has been done to such a precious part of being human is devastating yet avoidable. I also encourage anyone affected to visit the Tinnitus UK ParishLancaster Why has there been virtually no progress on 'fixing' tinnitus? Lara Williams elucidates the desperation we all go through when acute tinnitus sets in. Her 'acceptance' of the sensory handicap as the only path to coping with the condition mirrors my experience. However, that doesn't always work. Other anxieties can derail our blocking. Then we have to build up the resilience all over again. It can be an exhausting WoodinHitchin, Hertfordshire Tinnitus is exhausting, painful and isolating. At my first self‑help group, a gentle old lady told me she heard it as the angels urging her to carry on. Mine sounded more like a wasp trapped in a tin mug – but perhaps Lara Williams might find the angels version comforting?Ian GarnerOxenhope, West Yorkshire I read with empathy Lara Williams' article describing the onset of tinnitus. Sudden onset in adulthood must be very distressing. In my case it has been lifelong (I'm 76), and I only gradually became aware of it in my youth. She describes hearing something between an electronic hiss and the roar of the ocean; my symptoms are similar. I don't remember a specific onset, except that in adolescence I once or twice asked if anyone else heard high-pitched sounds from the TV and no one did. I didn't have access to the kind of professional help Williams consulted, but seemingly came to the same conclusion. It's there, part of me that isn't going away; fighting against myself is futile. Letting go of the idea that this is something that shouldn't be happening works better. Should and shouldn't have nothing to do with it. It just is. Williams' analogy to snowfall is beautiful and illuminating. Paying full attention to the moment or engaging fully in activity helps to simply not notice the tinnitus, or at least not as much, depending on the perceived volume at the time. Or maybe, sometimes, it's just forgetting to hear the tinnitus while listening to the silence. Bryan T DavisCedar Rapids, Iowa Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Bloomberg
6 days ago
- Science
- Bloomberg
The Summer I Turned Into Plastic
Opinion Newsletter Jessica Karl, Columnist There's so much of the stuff in the environment that it's only a matter of time before it takes over our brains. Save This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a massive expansion of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Serious question: Has this newsletter gone downhill? Sometimes readers will send me feedback and say my daily missives are USELESS & POINTLESS (yes, Rosemary M., I do read your emails) but I take it in stride, since a lot of you say otherwise. Yet after reading Lara Williams' latest column, I'm not so sure. Maybe my writing is getting worse! And maybe it's because my brain is slowly but surely turning into a big ball of plastic:
Bloomberg
6 days ago
- Climate
- Bloomberg
The UK's Overheating Problem Is Real
Most buildings in the UK were built before AC — and climate change. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Lara Williams explains how they can adapt to the era of heatwaves. (Source: Bloomberg)
Gulf Today
19-07-2025
- Health
- Gulf Today
Stop playing whac-a-mole with forever chemicals
Lara Williams, Tribune News Service The more you learn about PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — the worse it gets. Though improvements in monitoring and remediation techniques are welcome, what the world needs first and foremost is a universal ban on the chemicals. In fact, we needed it yesterday. There are more than 10,000 PFAS, also known as 'forever chemicals,' and they're used almost everywhere, including in nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, smartphones, packets of microwave popcorn, hair conditioners, fire-fighting foam, pacemakers, pesticides and dental floss. They don't readily degrade; they also don't stay where we put them. As a result, we can now find PFAS in places such as our blood, human breast milk, Antarctica, wild animals and tap water. In the Netherlands, people have been warned not to eat the eggs from their backyard chickens by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment due to high levels of the chemicals. Though it's not yet clear why home-produced eggs have higher amounts of PFAS than commercial ones, one theory is that earthworms now contain such chemicals, and hens like to eat the worms. An analysis by environmental groups Wildlife and Countryside Link and the Rivers Trust found that nearly all rivers, lakes and ponds in England exceed proposed safety limits, with 85% containing levels at least five times higher. France has banned tap water in 16 communes due to PFAS contamination, while a piece of investigative journalism called the Forever Pollution Project located 23,000 contaminated sites across Europe and a further 21,500 sites of presumptive contamination. I expect we haven't seen the last of the tap water bans. If the scale and extent of the pollution are hard to get your head around, the health implications are worse. PFAS have been linked to increased risk of various types of cancer, fertility problems, birth complications, delays to puberty and weakened immune systems. They've also been associated with increased cholesterol levels and kidney problems. We're looking at an issue analogous to climate change — right down to lobbying and cover-ups by PFAS manufacturers. Internal documents from 3M Co., one of the original and largest producers, and chemical firm DuPont de Nemours Inc. revealed that the companies knew the substances were accumulating in people and showing signs of toxicity for decades without telling anyone. While 3M still maintains that their PFAS-containing products are 'safe' for their intended uses in everyday life, in December 2022 the company announced it will discontinue the use of PFAS by the end of 2025. Together, the firms have had to pay billions in lawsuit settlements related to their pollution, with more possibly to come as injury cases hit the courts. As with carbon dioxide, the longer we keep emitting PFAS into the environment, the worse the problem gets and the harder it is to clean up with remediation technologies. While the PFAS market globally is worth just over $28 billion, the cost of cleaning up all the related pollution in the UK and Europe could be €100 billion ($116 billion) a year if nothing is done to stem the chemicals' steady flow into the environment. And that doesn't factor in the health-care costs, which the Nordic Council of Ministers estimates is at least €52 billion annually. Though some consumer brands such as outdoor gear retailer Patagonia Inc. and fast-food chain McDonald's Corp. have committed to phasing out PFAS from their products and packaging, others have been dragging their feet. A team of researchers, lawyers and journalists has also exposed a huge lobbying campaign against proposed restrictions in Europe, showing entrenched resistance to change. So we need a ban, but so far, we've only seen piecemeal prohibitions targeting either a specific chemical or, in a couple of leading countries, sectors. The import and sale of PFAS-treated clothing, shoes and waterproofing agents will be barred from July 2026 in Denmark, while the chemicals have been banned in paper and board food packaging since 2020. The country has also recently announced a ban on 23 pesticides that can form a very mobile form of PFAS called trifluoroacetic acid. France, meanwhile, has banned PFAS in several consumer product groups, including textiles, cosmetics and ski wax. Cookware, however, has been excluded from the ban after a campaign led by the French maker of Tefal pans, Groupe SEB. Though it's a start, exempting a sector for which safe alternatives are readily available is, frankly, scandalous. A universal ban may be on its way. In 2023, five European Union member states — Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Norway — submitted a proposal to the European Chemicals Agency, which two scientific committees are now examining. The ban covers both consumer and industrial applications, with time-limited exemptions expected for some uses where there are no alternatives, such as medical devices. What's most significant about the restriction is that it takes a precautionary approach, regulating all 10,000-plus PFAS as a group rather than individually. According to CHEM Trust, a charity focused on harmful synthetic chemicals, under the current rate of regulation that analyses each chemical individually, it would take more than 40,000 years to get through them all. So the EU ban will be a huge step forward with positive impacts beyond its borders. But we'll be waiting a while for it to come into effect — if everything goes smoothly, we're likely looking at 2028 before sectors transition to new rules. Meanwhile, progress elsewhere is pitiful. The UK government published an interim position on PFAS management in June, but this has been criticized by scientists for opting not to target all chemicals at once and instead creating their own groupings. Not only is this risky, failing to regulate compounds that lack toxicity data, but it lacks urgency. In the US, the Trump administration has pulled nearly $15 million in research into PFAS contamination of farmland, while the Environmental Protection Agency has announced plans to rescind drinking water limits for four forever chemicals. Of course, even banning the use of all PFAS tomorrow won't do anything for the substances already in our bodies and drinking water. But we know that restrictions help. Two chemicals — PFOS and PFOA — are already banned in Europe. A 2023 study showed that blood concentrations of the chemicals have declined substantially over time in Denmark. It's time to stop playing Whac-a-Mole with chemicals that we know are bad for us and our environment. If we take action now, we might stand a chance at cleaning up the mess we've made.
Bloomberg
19-06-2025
- Climate
- Bloomberg
How I Became a Doomsday Prepper
Opinion Natural disasters are on the rise. Bloomberg Opinion's Lara Williams explains why it's time to get prepared. (Source: Bloomberg)
