The NY Times reports that GE and the NFL have teamed up to fund research into football-related brain traumas. Six teams of investigators each received $500,000 to study football concussions and their aftermath. Three teams will study biomarkers that show various stages of concussion. The other three will research ways to detect and analyze brain injuries.
To my mind, much of the article reads like a PR press release, especially when it quotes only NFL and GE bigwigs who represent one side of the issue. “It’s not too far in the future” (two years from now, according to the article) that we may see practical benefits on the football field, says Jeff Miller, the NFL senior vice president. In other words, the game can go on.
My reaction: what about the players who are endangering themselves between now and the two-years-down-the-pike possible payoff?
The NFL and GE spokespeople suggest that the research will benefit not only football players but other people with ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. I’m all for that, but two questions remain:
- Why do football and boxing continue pretty much as they are, when everyone recognizes the danger of the repeated head traumas that these sports inevitably inflict on the athletes? Boxing is all about getting punched in the head again and again by an incredibly strong opponent who wants to knock you out. Football, for many players, is all about using your head and shoulders as a battering ram.
- Shouldn’t the NFL be taken to task for dragging its feet on this serious health issue? The Times article refers to the suicides of football stars Junior Seau (2012) and Dave Duerson (2011), who both suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) that resulted from their time on the gridiron. Each shot himself in the chest so his brain could be preserved for post-mortem research into the illness.
Article quote:
Head injuries have become a high priority for the NFL in recent years.
Right – at least five years, and only now is the NFL sponsoring this research? As I blogged elsewhere, the NFL is embroiled in a potential $1 billion lawsuit involving payouts to up to 21,000 former players whose brain injuries are leading to Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS and dementia. At issue in the case is the contention that the NFL hid what it knew about the dangers of players returning to the field soon after they received a head injury.
A related NY Times article casts further light on the subject, when it discusses Junior Seau’s upcoming induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I’ll quote directly from the opening paragraphs:
Junior Seau’s induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame was always going to be awkward, a chance to celebrate a marquee player known for his bone-crushing career while not dwelling on the injuries that might have precipitated his death.
When his induction was announced at the Super Bowl, his family rejoiced and started thinking about what to say at the ceremony in Canton, Ohio, on Aug. 8. Seau had told them that if he ever made it, he wanted his daughter, Sydney, to introduce him.
But the Hall of Fame does not plan to let Sydney or anyone else speak on Seau’s behalf. Instead, it will show a video commemorating his career, while avoiding questions about his suicide in 2012 at age 43 and the subsequent diagnosis of traumatic brain injury that doctors said they believed was brought on by hits to his head.
Nor will the video mention the lawsuit that Seau’s family has filed against the N.F.L., which is trying to curb injuries in active players and address brain disease among its almost 20,000 retired players. …
The Hall said Seau’s brain injury and suicide had nothing to do with its decision to show only a video, but Seau’s death continues to haunt the N.F.L., which collaborates with the Hall on the induction ceremony and for years denied any link between repeated hits on the field and brain disease.
Doesn’t this hearken back to the U.S. tobacco companies who for decades hid the fact that they knew cigarette smoking was addictive and cancerous, while they continued to run their deceptively benign smoking ads in magazines and on TV?
