Description
ATA is the nation's foremost organization working to cure tinnitus. Our board and staff work with researchers, tinnitus sufferers, donors, legislators and other concerned individuals to support vital tinnitus research. The researchers we fund work hard to discover the sources of tinnitus, to identify the best methods that will help people cope with their tinnitus and, especially, to find a cure for this often devastating condition.
ATA is at the forefront of a campaign to convince members of Congress and other policymakers about the urgent need to fund tinnitus research. Our support programs offer help - and hope - to tinnitus patients as they cope daily with this frustrating, and sometimes debilitating, condition.
ATA began with vision, compassion and a drive to help so many suffering with tinnitus who had virtually been sent home to suffer alone by practitioners who did not have the knowledge base or support they needed to adequately diagnosis and treat patients with tinnitus.
It was 1971, and Jack Vernon, Ph.D., a longtime champion of tinnitus patients, was conducting clinical research at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. He began treating Dr. Charles Unice, a California physician and tinnitus sufferer, and together the two founded the American Tinnitus Association. Its main goal - to raise money to fund tinnitus research - endures almost 40 years later.
Since 1980, ATA has awarded more than $5 million providing researchers with "seed" money to launch their work. Some of these researchers have gone on to receive large grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and more recently the U.S. Department of Defense based on their early, ATA-funded work.
