
Eleven-year-old Aissam Dam and Dr. John Germiller
Boy born deaf now hears thanks to gene therapy
By Mary Joyce, website editor
Since his birth, 11-year-old Aissam Dam never heard a thing, not even a shout. He only could communicate with gestures. Then through a series of miracles, the Moroccan-born boy ended up at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in October 2024 where he underwent gene therapy. Then on January 21, 2025, the hospital announced there was measurable improvement in the boy’s hearing.
"What we have really accomplished is exciting because it's the first time hearing has been restored in a child — really in a human being — for a hereditary type of hearing loss," says Dr. John Germiller of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
"The idea here is to replace a defective gene that a child is born with, restore that gene to the inner ear by literally injecting it into the inner ear," Germiller says. "It's a surgical procedure to do that, but it's exciting because if we can get the gene back in and get it functioning.”
This is wonderful news because there are about 34 million children in the world who are deaf or have hearing loss. Sixty percent of those cases are caused by a defective gene.
According to the Mayo Clinic, genes contain DNA which control much of the body's form and function. Genes that don't work properly can cause disease. So, gene therapy aims to fix a faulty gene or replace it with a healthy gene.
Gene therapy trials already are showing promise in the treatment of a wide range of other diseases such as ● cancer ● heart disease ● diabetes ● cystic fibrosis ● hemophilia ● sickle cell disease ● AIDS.

Encourage restaurants to help save our oceans
By Mary Joyce, website editor
NOTE: This information was posted on our Facebook pages for Earth Day but it’s worth posting any day of the year.
If we all stop using plastic straws and utensils will that really un-strangle our oceans? Not likely. It can take 1000 years to breakdown a fork that is labeled “biodegradable.”
But there is another solution: COMPOSTABLE PRODUCTS and packaging that will decompose along with food garbage. Below is a list of a few of many companies that make compostable products. Consider sharing this information with restaurant owners in your town and sending it to corporate headquarters for national chain restaurants.
● Good Start Packaging
www.goodstartpackaging.com
● Green Paper Products
www.greenpaperproducts.com
● Eco-Products
www.ecoproductsstore.com
● World Centric
www.worldcentric.com
● Tayst Coffee Roaster (Bio-degradable K-cups)
www.tayst.com