One in six has hearing loss
Work noise increases risk of hearing loss but very few are aware of the fact that chemical substances increases the risk for hearing damage.
Some chemical substances, ototoxic substances, may affect your hearing. Solvents, some metals (lead, mercury and manganese) and respiratory inhibition substances (carbon monoxide and cyanide) have negative effects. A simultaneous exposure to noise, styrene and toluene increases the risk of hearing damage 10-20 times compared with only noise exposure. Other factors such as hypertension, high cholesterol, smoking and certain drugs neomycin and salicylates may increase the risk of hearing loss at noise exposure.
Working with solvents hazardous for your hearing http://www.hear-it.org/page.dsp?page=2339