Concussion Demagoguery Continued

The demagogoguery we seem to always get about football and head injuries ramped up with a NY Times story about the NFL's research into CTE and questioning the sincerity of it. Recently we got a minor admission from Ann McKee, of BU's concussion research effort (whom an NFL official while in DC cited when he talked about links between football and CTE), where she said "we have no idea" what percentage of NFL players develop CTE. She insists it can't be rare because of the sample size she cites - but then red flags about the research should have first flown with discovery of CTE in people and players (notably Chris Henry of the Bengals, killed in a highway accident in 2009) who never had concussions; the "explanation" given is that an accumulation of little blows could cause such brain damage, but this amounts to changing definition or diagnosis to justify a conclusion rather than rethink the conclusion.

There is also the discovery of CTE in the likes of Raiders great Kenny Stabler - discovery even though he hadn't played in over thirty years.  

Arizona Cardinals coach Bruce Arians also raised eyebrows by angrily defending the safety of the game and mocking people for trying to prevent children from playing youth football - this even though Stanford researcher Ed Riley defended its safety back in 2015.   It earned a stupid retort in Sporting News that defined dumbed down demagoguery posing as sports writing. 

The demagoguery has to stop.  Football is a safe game and only getting safer, and Arians is right - you ARE a fool to deny participation in the youth game.


2017 UPDATE - the fifth International Conference On Concussion In Sport met in Berlin in late 2016 and around April 2017 was issued  the group's consensus statement.  

A key part from the consensus statement -

The literature on neurobehavioral sequelae and long-term consequences of exposure to recurrant head trauma is inconsistent.  Clinicians need to be mindful of the potential for long-term problems such as cognitive impairment, depression, etc. in the management of all athletes.   However, there is much more to learn about the potential cause-and-effect relationships of repetitive head-impact exposure and concussions.   The potential for developing CTE must be considered as this condition appears to represent a distinct tauopathy with an unknown incidence in athletic populations.   A cause-and-effect relationship has not yet been demonstrated between CTE and (Sports Related Concussions - SRCs) or exposure to contact sports.  As such, the notion that repeated concussion or subconcussive impacts cause CTE remains unknown.

NFL: Endorsing A Concussion Demagogue And Declawing Goodell

The NFL is in DC this week and two stories have broken that are pretty big. The more immediate one is that the league and the NFLPA are negotiating a new player discipline policy that in essence declaws Roger Goodell. DeMaurice Smith of the NFLPA says a new deal has to settle present controversies, notably the league's absurd punishment of Tom Brady.

That the league has come to this extends beyond punishment of players.   It basically serves as a fundamental rebuke of Roger Goodell's raison d'etre.  Goodell was elected NFL commissioner to reign in players whose off-field behavior had supposedly spiraled out of control - "the inmates were running the asylum" is the term I've heard used.   The problem quickly became that the players were not the problem; Goodell immediately made himself the problem by handing down punishments based on his own personal spite, and punishing players based on mere accusations.   Sports law professor Jeffrey Standen back during the Spygate fiasco showed how the owners themselves had serious doubts about Goodell's judgement to be commissioner, and now we've had nothing but proof he never should have been elected.

So it would seem declawing him on player punishments is but step one toward removing him from office entirely. 


The second story is that NFL official Jeff Miller, during a roundtable discussion in DC with Rep. Jan Shakowsky, answered a question about football concussions  - "Do you think there is a link between football and degenerative brain disorders?"  Miller replied yes by citing recent research by Ann McKee of Boston University.   That the league cited Ann McKee is surprising given what real science says, such as this piece on the study of six deceased CFL players, a piece that overall refuses demagoguery about football - "It is difficult to establish a definitive link between multiple concussions and the development of CTE" is the piece's conclusion).

McKee has been one of the more demagogic pushers of the myth of football killing its players - McKee's research (and that of the BU group in general) too often dumbs down the definition of brain degeneration by including as evidence of CTE the results of normal aging, and the research has been disputed by the British Journal Of Sports Medicine.  "McKee zealously looks for CTE and the methods she employs help her to find it." So why is the NFL endorsing a concussion demagogue instead of real science that puts icewater on McKee's premise? For that matter it seems the larger media has ignored any source of CTE information other than the BU group.

The game has been safer for so long that to let a group of academic demagogues set a sham debate about its safety is stupidity at its worst. 

Football Convicted Of.......Nothing

NOTE: The following was first published on February 5, 2013:


Junior Seau's suicide was the latest indictment of football as a sport that's killing its participants due to concussions. Seau's autopsy showed no brain damage, though a later examination apparently established the presence of CTE - aka brain degeneration. The study of concussions has produced more assumption than hard fact, shown in criticism of Deion Sanders when he defended the safety of the game following Super Bowl XLVII. Sanders' point is shown in more frequent head injuries in soccer and football-related brain injury deaths, averaging 20 per year in the 1960s, is in effect gone from the game, and even this may be overselling the danger. The fact is Sanders is right - football is a safe game.  

FOLLOW-UP, June 3, 2014: The initial lawsuit against the NFL was settled before the 2013 season with a $765 million payout to former players; the lawyers initially wanted $2 billion, but settled for less than half as their case wasn't credible enough to win all of it. The $765 million could likely have been negotiated without any lawsuit threat. Now a follow-up lawsuit has supposedly been filed; Dan Marino was reported (on June 2) to be involved but this was followed by a report that he withdrew the next day. Amid this, PBS aired a "documentary" based on the book League Of Denial - but the evidence about concussions and danger to players isn't as solid as the media portrays it. There is also what the November 2012 International Conference On Concussion In Sport stated.  


FOLLOW-UP, March 18, 2015:  The sudden retirement of 49ers player Chris Borland after one season has stirred up more debate about football risk, as Borland cited concern over head injuries (this despite having no recognizable head injuries from his brief career) and in effect smeared the safety of the game on Outside The Lines, which led to a Steelers team doctor defending the game's safety, a defense nicely examined by Mike Florio and also this Jerry Thornton piece about coaching youth football.