A neuropathologist named Dr. Ann McKee has done research on the brains of ex-boxers and football players and found that an abnormally high percentage have "chronic traumatic encephalopathy" or C.T.E. In lay terms that is a progressive neurological disorder found in people who have suffered brain trauma. It looks and acts a lot like alzheimers or dementia, only in these players it occurs at much younger ages. Her research is described in detail in the October 19th edition of The New Yorker in an article by Malcolm Gladwell.
After reading about this research, you will have to think hard about whether or not we should ban football in the U.S. or at least vigorously examine the potential damage that may be done to athletes who play the game.
See below for an UPDATE.
UPDATE OCTOBER 22, 2009: The New York Times describes a case of an amateur athlete who never played professional football but nevertheless developed C.T.E. and died at 42. This suggests that brain damage may start even earlier than thought.
There are lots of reasons for banning football, none of which has ever gained much traction in the U.S. Americans love their football and that's that.
That's not to say there hasn't been research on football injuries. This article from 2005 discusses the injuries and how to mitigate them.
Research shows collegiate athletes are more susceptible to catastrophic (or severe) injury than athletes at the high school level, particularly when it comes to certain sports like football and cheerleading. However, the physical, mental and social benefits of team sports significantly outweigh the risks involved: only one out of every 100,000 athletes suffers from a direct catastrophic injury
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Note the phrase "benefits...significantly outweigh the risks." This conclusion is based on the number of of "direct catastrophic injuries" that athletes and cheerleaders suffer. It does NOT take into account the research of Dr. McKee, who really accidentally stumbled across her finding about football players when she was analyzing the brain of a recently autopsied dementia patient in a VA ward in Massachusetts. She found a distinctive pattern of "tau" damage in the brain, something not typical of alzheimer patients. That's when she realized he had C.T.E., which is the result of injury. The patient turned out to have been a boxer in his youth.
Gladwell describes how Dr. McKee began to collect brain samples from athletes who had played football and died in a variety of ways. (It was quite difficult to get families to agree to allow her to autopsy their son's brains, by the way.) In her research thus far, she has not seen one single brain of an ex-football player that did not have C.T.E. and "tau" in the brain, which is highly unusual in such a small sample. She is careful to note that she will need to see at least 50 cases before she can draw any firm conclusions. Meanwhile, we are perhaps asking young men to risk dementia in later life (or not so later) without their consent or even knowledge.
Gladwell agreed to do a Q and A on The New Yorker website about his article -- putting aside the dogfighting comparison he makes, which I think is actually distracting from the main story -- he admits that there is violence in other sports as well - take ice hockey for example. But here is his argument --
QUESTION FROM DENNIS VAN STAALDUINEN: Fights in ice hockey are, of course, an even more gladiatorial (and controversial) example of modern bloodsport masked as normal mainstream athletic entertainment—to say nothing of wrestling, extreme fighting, etc. Isn’t football at the tamer end of the spectrum?
MALCOLM GLADWELL: Good question. Well, hockey is different. What you have there is (I’m guessing) a higher risk of concussive brain trauma: that is, a greater number of really big hits to the head. But what hockey doesn’t have is the incredible number of sub-concussive impacts that football has—and the research seems to suggest that the latter is as dangerous (or more dangerous) than the former. I can also see how the head could be taken out of play in hockey in a way that I can’t quite see it taken out of play in football.
There are many reasons why football endures as a sport in American life. It fits with our violent culture; it brings in big money to universities; it has color and spectacle and drama; it gives old guys (and women) something to do on weekends to re-live their youth (sorry that was a cheap shot...young guys and women too.) And some of my very best friends are football coaches, truly. But here is a quote that ought to make all of us think very hard about this...
QUESTION FROM JONATHON: I am a high school football coach. What do you feel is our responsibility as coaches on the younger levels? More education as to the nature of brain injuries? Better technique?
MALCOLM GLADWELL: That is the hardest question of all. I honestly don’t know. Both you as a coach—and, as importantly, people like me, who are die-hard football fans—need to consider the possibility that the game is irretrievably harmful. It’s way too early to decide that yet. But I think we have to commit to following what the science tell us—even if it means walking away from a game we love.
Wed May 02, 2012 at 12:30 PM PT: With the suicide of two more former NFL players in the past few weeks, this article becomes even more relevant -- and poignant. Will we continue to play football as we do? Are we ready to deal with the consequences of our willingness to send young men out to bash each other's brains out?