I'm delighted that this particular thread has focused attention on what research the BTA is funding and more importantly what research it isn't funding. Like many others when I first donated money to the BTA I had assumed that this was going towards biomedical research towards a cure - similar to the work done by Cancer and MS charities for these conditions.
I subsequently discovered that the BTA isn't spending money on Biomedical research but it is choosing to spend money on psychological approaches to tinnitus. Fair enough if you think the limited amount of funds available for tinnitus research should be spent on more of these. Personally, I don't. By the BTA's own calculation there have been 200 recent clinical studies of CBT for tinnitus. We don't need to keep repeating this research again and again - what we do need is good quality biomedical research.
I've also spent a lot of time challenging the downgrading of the impact of tinnitus on people's lives by the BTA and NHS. The BTA currently asserts that tinnitus "has no affect at all on the lives of the majority of people with tinnitus". They haven't produced any evidence at all for this claim so far. I hope they will now remove it from their website.
I'm delighted that other Tinnitus Talk forum members are following my example and challenging many of the BTA's dubious and unhelpful assertions about tinnitus. There have been excellent posts recently about the BTA's very poor leaflet about tinnitus and drugs, which is full of sweeping statements not backed up by evidence.
Of course my criticising the BTA has led to some unpleasant personal attacks on me - ironically by those who have been all too happy to criticise the ATA for much the same failings as the BTA (I should stress I absolutely do
not include
@TuxedoCat among this number). I just try to ignore these as they say so much more about the person making the personal attacks than they do about me.