Citation Nr: 21076770 Decision Date: 12/27/21 Archive Date: 12/27/21 DOCKET NO. 20-07 116 DATE: December 27, 2021 REMANDED Entitlement to service connection for bilateral hearing loss disability is remanded. Entitlement to service connection for tinnitus is remanded. REASONS FOR REMAND The Veteran served on active duty from October 1966 to October 1969. In August 2020 the Veteran's representative informed the Board of Veterans' Appeals (Board) that the Veteran no longer wished to have a hearing before the Board. 1. Entitlement to service connection for bilateral hearing loss disability is remanded. 2. Entitlement to service connection for tinnitus is remanded. The Veteran submitted his claims for service connection for bilateral hearing loss disability and tinnitus in January 2017. He maintains that he developed these disabilities due to his exposure to acoustic trauma during service. In a November 2021 informal hearing presentation (IHP) the Veteran's representative referred to a medical journal study and asserted that it supported the Veteran's claim that his hearing loss disability is due to noise trauma during service, even though hearing loss was not shown at discharge from service. The Veteran was provided a VA audiology examination in May 2017 and the VA examiner provided negative opinions regarding the etiology of the Veteran's tinnitus and hearing loss disabilities. The record does not indicate that the VA audiologist considered the article cited by the Veteran's representative. Thus, the Board finds that a remand is necessary to obtain medical opinions that consider the article cited by the Veteran's representative. The matters are REMANDED for the following action: 1. Obtain copies of the Veteran's VA treatment records and associate them with the claims file. 2. Thereafter forward the claims file to an ENT specialist or other suitably qualified health care professional, to obtain an opinion to determine whether the Veteran's hearing loss and tinnitus disabilities are causally related to service. The examiner should provide an opinion as to whether the Veteran's hearing loss at least as likely as not (50 percent or greater possibility), had its onset during, or is otherwise related to, his military service. The physician also should provide an opinion as to whether the Veteran's tinnitus at least as likely as not (50 percent or greater possibility), had its onset during, or is otherwise related to, his military service. In providing the above opinions the physician must discuss the medical journal article: Aging after Noise Exposure: Acceleration of Cochlear Synaptopathy in "Recovered" Ears, Journal of Neuroscience 13 May 2015, 35 (19) 7509-7520; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5138-14.2015. The opinions provided must include a complete rationale. If the physician feels that a requested opinion cannot be rendered without resorting to speculation, the physician must state whether the need to speculate is caused by a deficiency in the state of general medical knowledge (i.e., no one could respond given medical science and the known facts) or by a deficiency in the record or the examiner (i.e., additional facts are required, or the examiner does not have the needed knowledge or training). G. A. WASIK Veterans Law Judge Board of Veterans' Appeals Attorney for the Board R. E. Jones, Counsel The Board's decision in this case is binding only with respect to the instant matter decided. This decision is not precedential and does not establish VA policies or interpretations of general applicability. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1303.