As the NFL nears an end to its long-running legal battle over concussions, new data from the nation’s largest brain bank focused on traumatic brain injury has found evidence of a degenerative brain disease in 76 of the 79 former players it’s examined.
The findings represent a more than twofold increase in the number of cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, that have been reported by the Department of Veterans Affairs’ brain repository in Bedford, Mass.
Researchers there have now examined the brain tissue of 128 football players who, before their deaths, played the game professionally, semi-professionally, in college or in high school. Of that sample, 101 players, or just under 80 percent, tested positive for CTE.
To be sure, players represented in the data represent a skewed population. CTE can only be definitively identified posthumously, and many of the players who have donated their brains for research suspected that they may have had the disease while still alive. For example, former Chicago Bears star Dave Duerson committed suicide in 2011 by shooting himself in the chest, reportedly to preserve his brain for examination.
While the settlement includes no admission of wrongdoing, actuarial data filed in federal court this month showed the NFL expects nearly a third of all retired players to develop a long-term cognitive problem, such as Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, as a result of football.
The numbers will become too overwhelming. Once these statistics can be extrapolated for youth football and HS, participation will drop off a cliff and the game will fail to survive. Colleges and School districts will become the next defendants in these types of cases. It will take some time because of all of the money involved, but that day will come. As it probably should.
They are taking all the shit for this, however almost all these players played football in JR High, HS and College and probably before that. They had more years of playing football that their careers in the NFL lasted
They need to look at better safety well before the NFL
we will be watching some type of flag football if it is profitable shortly. A lot of people will lose their livelihood in this game. The lawyers will sue everybody and you can kiss the game as we know it goodbye.
Long term. I just can't. Because there is going to be a hell of a lot more of this in the years to come and it's going to be guys that the current generation grew up with, and rooted for, and got to know because of the 24/7 lifestyle we all live in. I'm not going to put a number on it, but I can't see the sport surviving long term, not in it's current form anyway.
on why the NFL should buy MLS. Why? One reason is because in 30 years when football is gone, the MLS will be kicking. Why the NFL Should Buy the MLS—Right Now - ( New Window )
Soccer is also coming under more scrutiny for the same problem. I don't think I'd be looking to invest in it in this country.
we will be watching some type of flag football if it is profitable shortly. A lot of people will lose their livelihood in this game. The lawyers will sue everybody and you can kiss the game as we know it goodbye.
it will become a flag football league, or the notion of tackling in football has to change.
after they die, what percent would have this disease?
I don't believe 1/3 of all humans have long-term cognitive problems. And that's the NFL saying, "as a result of football". By "football" I assume they mean the NFL and the preceding age related playing.
Quote:
From the article ...
sphinx : 7:54 pm : link : reply
While the settlement includes no admission of wrongdoing, actuarial data filed in federal court this month showed the NFL expects nearly a third of all retired players to develop a long-term cognitive problem, such as Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, as a result of football.
Was talking about this today. He said (not sure where he got the info from) that there are higher rates of brain trauma in girls youth soccer than the NFL. I do think this is a serious issue, but right now we have data in a vacuum. How does an NFL players brain compare to a player in Hockey, Lacrosse, or MLS? How old were these men when they damage first happened? Should children be playing football before a certain age? (an important question I think).
Yeah, the number is not good, but we have no idea what it all means in relation to anything else. And as far as football dying, maybe you see a talent drop off, but until the investors and sponsors run, this league ain't going anywhere.
Was talking about this today. He said (not sure where he got the info from) that there are higher rates of brain trauma in girls youth soccer than the NFL.
The number of girls suffering concussions in soccer accounts for the second largest amount of all concussions reported by young athletes, according to the American Journal of Sports Medicine. (Football tops the list.) LINK
... “female soccer players are second only to football players in the number of concussions” that they develop each year, Dr. Sereno said, suggesting that head trauma is a common problem in the sport. Girls are also more likely than boys to sustain injuries during soccer heading, some statistics show. LINK
"The N.F.L.’s actuaries assumed that 28 percent of all players would be found to have one of the compensable diseases and that the league would pay out $900 million to them. Their calculations showed that players younger than 50 had an 0.8 percent chance of developing Alzheimer’s or dementia, compared with less than 0.1 percent for the general population. For players ages 50 to 54, the rate was 1.4 percent, compared with less than 0.1 percent for the general population. The gap between the players and the general population grows wider with increasing age." Brain Trauma to Affect One in Three Players, N.F.L. Agrees Email Share Tweet More - ( New Window )
Do away with the battle helmet and bring back the leather. If players fear they might hurt their own head rather than using it as a weapon, the sport can and will survive.
excellent question. I'm not sure of the answer though.
I think this study needs to begin. I played football, baseball and soccer growing up. I was in numerous fist fights. Probably inadvertamtly banged my head moree then I'd like to admit. Just curious at what point it causes the disease.
...or energy industry workers... or NASCAR pit crews... or former infantrymen, for Pete's sake.
The NFL has good lawyers too. They will figure out ways to indemnify the League. The occupational hazards are pretty well known. Players will give informed consent, their union will go along, and the sport will continue.
Will more concerned parents keep their kids from playing? Sure. Will some affluent districts and elite universities drop the sport? Probably. Will these trends have much effect at the pro level? Not for a long, LONG time, if ever. How many NFL players grew up in Scarsdale and graduated from Yale? Would Jay Bromley's parents have held him out of football to protect his brain from injury?
Its earlier incarnation, Cavalcade of Sports, likewise a boxing show, ran on NBC's New York City station WNBT (now WNBC) intermittently since 1943 and was picked up by the NBC network three years later. The twice-weekly 1946 shows began on Monday, November 8 at 9 p.m. and Friday, November 12 at 9:30 p.m. Both were open-ended programs—when the last bout ended, the station signed off the air (in the early days of TV, most stations did not have late-night news).
St. Nicholas Arena in New York City was the site of the earliest bouts and continued to host the Monday night fights until the show's cancellation in May 1949.
The Friday night show, broadcast from Madison Square Garden lasted until June 24, 1960, a 14-year period which is, by far, the longest continuous run of any boxing program in television history. The Gillette sponsorship began at the start of TV's first full-programming season, 1948-49. On September 4, the program was renamed The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, a name that remained until the end. Every great boxer of the time—Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, Rocky Graziano, Jake Lamotta. Willie Pep and many others appeared on one or more of its broadcasts.
In TV's early years, there was a saturation of boxing programs, as many as six prime-time network shows in one week, not even counting the myriad local shows.
And it won't get more popular either, because its very hard to get more popular than it already is.
It will be very interesting to see where it goes. Keep in mind, after boxing began to fade, a more violent sport, MMA, essentially replaced it. And I don't see too many people - employers or fans - raising too many concerns about them.
20 years ago all the really good multisport athletes - Winfield, Dave parker, chose baseball. Elway was te first to go the other way. Will they go to basketball?
The next chapter in the ongoing NFL crisis: painkillers. Â
The linked article talks about how many NFL players ended up with addictions that started with dispensing of painkillers by NFL teams.
Quote:
Steven Silverman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said more than 1,000 former players were expected to join a lawsuit that accuses the NFL of running an illegal drug business in which doctors, paid by NFL teams, stockpiled and distributed controlled substances through bogus prescription orders.
For years, Silverman said, the NFL violated the federal Controlled Substances Act passed in 1970.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating, the New York Daily News first reported in July.
Meanwhile there is this: The American Academy of Neurology is taking an extremely strong stand that opioids should not be part of ANY long-term pain treatment regimen.
Some in the pain community called out a red flag when they saw that a growing proportion of pain patients were still taking opioids but not reporting any improvements. In 2003, Dr. Jane Ballantyne and Dr. Jianren Mao, then at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, published a review of the existing data on opioid use for chronic pain in the New England Journal of Medicine. It was among the first studies to highlight the fact that the skyrocketing number of prescriptions was doing little to actually reduce reports of chronic pain. “The real problem is physicians who are practicing with the best intentions and not understanding what the limited role of opiates is,” says Ballantyne, now a professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine at the University of Washington. “For 20 years they have been taught that everybody deserves an opiate, because they really don’t know what else to do. It’s a cultural thing and it’s hard to reverse that.”
The result, Franklin notes, is that since the 1990s, more than 100,000 people have died from opioid overdoses – more than the total number of American soldiers who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. In addition, studies have linked opioid use to serious health problems, from changes in hormone levels that can contribute to infertility, abnormal immune function, heart problems, and even worsening of pain symptoms.
Ballantyne says that the opioids can backfire in excessive doses; in the same way that neurons become over-sensitized to pain and hyper-reactive, high doses of opioids could prime some nerves to respond more intensely to pain signals, rather than helping them to modulate their reaction. “The idea is that we have the answer to all chronic pain, and that is to give opiates. That’s simply not true,” she says. “A lot of chronic pain isn’t appropriate for opiates.”
to read the actual article. It's an unrepresentative sample. It says that many of the players donated their brains for research because it was "suspected that they may have had the disease while still alive." Without an unbiased sample of deceased NFL players, this is hardly the end of the NFL.
If the NFL hadn't kept lying about that state of the art in CTE studies for over a decade, their position would be more credible, and they could better deal with biased studies from the other side.
If the NFL hadn't kept lying about that state of the art in CTE studies for over a decade, their position would be more credible, and they could better deal with biased studies from the other side.
Doesn't help with the painkiller issue, though.
That article isn't really talking about a research study to determine the prevalence of CTE though. They looked at people (likely with symptoms) who donated their brains. My point is that can't draw any real conclusions about the likely prevalence of CTE from a sample like that. You'd need a random sample of ex-NFL players not a self-selected sample.
Of course the NFL has lost much of its leg to stand on with regards to past players that were effectively lied to by the League, but at what point and what level has the assumption of risk been inherent to the sport?
Do high school athletes currently playing football assume that risk now, having it understood that the reasonable American understands the potential long-term effects of the sport?
Why the NFL Should Buy the MLS—Right Now - ( New Window )
They need to look at better safety well before the NFL
Soccer is also coming under more scrutiny for the same problem. I don't think I'd be looking to invest in it in this country.
its being going on since 9th grade
my kid is still playing football as early as possible
it will become a flag football league, or the notion of tackling in football has to change.
I mean those can't be good for your brain either right
I don't believe 1/3 of all humans have long-term cognitive problems. And that's the NFL saying, "as a result of football". By "football" I assume they mean the NFL and the preceding age related playing.
sphinx : 7:54 pm : link : reply
While the settlement includes no admission of wrongdoing, actuarial data filed in federal court this month showed the NFL expects nearly a third of all retired players to develop a long-term cognitive problem, such as Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, as a result of football.
Yeah, the number is not good, but we have no idea what it all means in relation to anything else. And as far as football dying, maybe you see a talent drop off, but until the investors and sponsors run, this league ain't going anywhere.
The number of girls suffering concussions in soccer accounts for the second largest amount of all concussions reported by young athletes, according to the American Journal of Sports Medicine. (Football tops the list.)
LINK
... “female soccer players are second only to football players in the number of concussions” that they develop each year, Dr. Sereno said, suggesting that head trauma is a common problem in the sport. Girls are also more likely than boys to sustain injuries during soccer heading, some statistics show.
LINK
Brain Trauma to Affect One in Three Players, N.F.L. Agrees Email Share Tweet More - ( New Window )
I think this study needs to begin. I played football, baseball and soccer growing up. I was in numerous fist fights. Probably inadvertamtly banged my head moree then I'd like to admit. Just curious at what point it causes the disease.
Quote:
All I know is, if I had sons (I have 2 girls), I'd try my hardest to keep them from playing football.
Jeez. Do your girls know you don't care whether or not they get brain injuries?
Cam, you know, girls are born with brain injuries... JKJK SORRY EMMA WATSON
Look at MMA...it's basically sanctioned gladiator matches, and it's one of the fastest growing sports in the world
The NFL has good lawyers too. They will figure out ways to indemnify the League. The occupational hazards are pretty well known. Players will give informed consent, their union will go along, and the sport will continue.
Will more concerned parents keep their kids from playing? Sure. Will some affluent districts and elite universities drop the sport? Probably. Will these trends have much effect at the pro level? Not for a long, LONG time, if ever. How many NFL players grew up in Scarsdale and graduated from Yale? Would Jay Bromley's parents have held him out of football to protect his brain from injury?
Its earlier incarnation, Cavalcade of Sports, likewise a boxing show, ran on NBC's New York City station WNBT (now WNBC) intermittently since 1943 and was picked up by the NBC network three years later. The twice-weekly 1946 shows began on Monday, November 8 at 9 p.m. and Friday, November 12 at 9:30 p.m. Both were open-ended programs—when the last bout ended, the station signed off the air (in the early days of TV, most stations did not have late-night news).
St. Nicholas Arena in New York City was the site of the earliest bouts and continued to host the Monday night fights until the show's cancellation in May 1949.
The Friday night show, broadcast from Madison Square Garden lasted until June 24, 1960, a 14-year period which is, by far, the longest continuous run of any boxing program in television history. The Gillette sponsorship began at the start of TV's first full-programming season, 1948-49. On September 4, the program was renamed The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, a name that remained until the end. Every great boxer of the time—Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, Rocky Graziano, Jake Lamotta. Willie Pep and many others appeared on one or more of its broadcasts.
In TV's early years, there was a saturation of boxing programs, as many as six prime-time network shows in one week, not even counting the myriad local shows.
Continued ... The Golden Age of Television Began with Boxing - ( New Window )
It will be very interesting to see where it goes. Keep in mind, after boxing began to fade, a more violent sport, MMA, essentially replaced it. And I don't see too many people - employers or fans - raising too many concerns about them.
20 years ago all the really good multisport athletes - Winfield, Dave parker, chose baseball. Elway was te first to go the other way. Will they go to basketball?
Steven Silverman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said more than 1,000 former players were expected to join a lawsuit that accuses the NFL of running an illegal drug business in which doctors, paid by NFL teams, stockpiled and distributed controlled substances through bogus prescription orders.
For years, Silverman said, the NFL violated the federal Controlled Substances Act passed in 1970.
The Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating, the New York Daily News first reported in July.
Meanwhile there is this: The American Academy of Neurology is taking an extremely strong stand that opioids should not be part of ANY long-term pain treatment regimen.
http://time.com/3445728/painkillers-opioids-dangerous/
The result, Franklin notes, is that since the 1990s, more than 100,000 people have died from opioid overdoses – more than the total number of American soldiers who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. In addition, studies have linked opioid use to serious health problems, from changes in hormone levels that can contribute to infertility, abnormal immune function, heart problems, and even worsening of pain symptoms.
Ballantyne says that the opioids can backfire in excessive doses; in the same way that neurons become over-sensitized to pain and hyper-reactive, high doses of opioids could prime some nerves to respond more intensely to pain signals, rather than helping them to modulate their reaction. “The idea is that we have the answer to all chronic pain, and that is to give opiates. That’s simply not true,” she says. “A lot of chronic pain isn’t appropriate for opiates.”
Link - ( New Window )
Doesn't help with the painkiller issue, though.
Doesn't help with the painkiller issue, though.
That article isn't really talking about a research study to determine the prevalence of CTE though. They looked at people (likely with symptoms) who donated their brains. My point is that can't draw any real conclusions about the likely prevalence of CTE from a sample like that. You'd need a random sample of ex-NFL players not a self-selected sample.
If that's the case, soccer can ban headers and the sport will continue in much the same way it's played today.
Football, on the other hand, is doomed.
Once people start sueing high schools, it's over.
Do high school athletes currently playing football assume that risk now, having it understood that the reasonable American understands the potential long-term effects of the sport?