Health warnings for loud concerts?

HOW generous of Shania Twain, during her concert last Saturday night, to make her music available to so many residents of Dunedin who hadn’t paid to hear it.

But Civis couldn’t help wondering about the effect on those who had paid.

The US National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders has a page on its website explaining the mechanism of Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL). It points out that NIHL can occur with noise greater than 85 decibels (the level generated by heavy city traffic), and that even short exposure to very loud noise can cause permanent damage. It suggests avoiding noise that is ‘‘too loud, too close, or lasts too long’’.

The sound that woke Civis, sleeping soundly, several kilometres from the Forsyth Barr Stadium, with two hills and double glazing between, must have been deafening for those inside the stadium. For them the noise exposure must indeed have been too loud, too close, and too long, and likely to have caused significant longterm damage to their hearing.

Should such performances come with a mandatory health warning?

New Zealand requires explicit health warnings on cigarette packets. Given that tickets for some popular performers sell out almost immediately, it’s difficult to see how comparable warnings could be made mandatory before ticket purchase.

But why not require health warnings to be attached to concert tickets where the sound will exceed a certain decibel level (judging by the hardware they bring along, that would seem to apply to most bigname entertainers performing at the stadium) with refunds guaranteed if bookings are cancelled within, say, a week, so buyers can make an informed choice regarding attendance, or using ear protection?

Tobacco seems to be about the only legal but harmful product for which a health warning is mandatory in New Zealand

Arguably alcohol, in New Zealand, causes much greater harm than tobacco, but, unlike in the United States, Canada, and the European Union, health warnings on alcoholic drinks in New Zealand are voluntary, and recent research by a group of University of Otago medical students has shown that, for popular beers, cheap wine, and readytodrink beverages, they are insignificant (well under 1% of the labels), unnoticeable, and lacked detail (only 19% warned against drinkdriving). The booze barons seem to have taken control of recent governments (the present government is working on warnings about alcohol and pregnancy, though), and persuaded them, contrary to expert advice, not to interfere with their conscienceless pursuit of profit, based on high consumption by the 20% of drinkers who consume 80% of their products, for which society carries the cost.

So it may be naive to expect a government to act to reduce the number of those who unknowingly condemn themselves to the quiet loneliness of deafness in later years.

Local public health officials, though, could publicise the danger to hearing from attending these events. That would be more useful than interfering, as they have, with harmless institutions such as West’s cordial company (which, incidentally, claims to provide New Zealand’s largest range of sugarfree soft drinks, milkshakes, soda and cordials — that’s a real contribution to public health) and the Brockville supermarket, by nitpicking objections to their sale of alcohol.

No doubt business owners, particularly those running bars and accommodation businesses, would be up in arms if that happened — Dunedin Venues Management Ltd claims that stadium concerts brought business worth almost $50 million (how much sheer guesswork is included in such figures?) to Dunedin in the financial year ending June 30, 2018.

But that reaction would, in principle, be the same as President Trump’s refusal, because the US sells billions of dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, to accept that Crown Prince

Mohammed bin Salman ordered, as the CIA has concluded, the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Hearing is important. Concertgoers should at least be aware of the damage they incur from paying large sums to hear massively amplified pop or rock stars.