Concussion and football revisited..PBS Frontline investigation
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365067212/
PBS' "Frontline" will air an investigation into the NFL's response to concussions and head injuries among players. The investigation includes a documentary, "League Of Denial," that is set to appear Oct. 8 and 15 on PBS.
There was collaberation between PBS and ESPN on this story.
However, the New York Times reported that the NFL began pressuring ESPN after the trailer for the documentary was released on Aug. 6. The trailer shows people discussing players suffering from dementia and brain disease as a result from playing professional football. The NFL is being sued by thousands of former players claiming that the league hid information linking football-related head trauma to brain injuries.
August 23rd, 2013 at 1:34 PM ^
August 23rd, 2013 at 1:52 PM ^
Remember ESPN's "jacked up" bit they used to do? Whoops!!
August 23rd, 2013 at 1:58 PM ^
Roger Goodell sucks for a bunch of reasons, but this is the biggest one. He lauds himself as some champion of player safety only to pull the monetary leash on ESPN when they engage in actual journalism on the topic. It's blatant hypocrisy of the highest degree. F the Ginger Hammer.
http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2013/08/roger-goodell-clips-espns-balls.html
August 23rd, 2013 at 2:10 PM ^
Michael Moore would be proud.
August 23rd, 2013 at 2:19 PM ^
It could also be that naming the film came last and the all the information uncovered in the process of making the film pointed towards a viewpoint that is unfavorable to the NFL. Just because a documentary has a point of view doesn't mean that it arrived at that point of view sans investigation or critical analysis. It's naive to think that the only impartial things are those that don't have a point of view.
But I 100% cosign on the Michael Moore hate. The best thing about Michael Moore is that he provided Pete Holmes' with his best impression.
August 23rd, 2013 at 2:29 PM ^
Anyone who honestly thinks the NFL hasn't ever had a hand in covering up or confounding medical issues arising from football-related injuries, specifically concussions, needs to grow up a bit. This is the same league that employed Ira Casson.
August 23rd, 2013 at 3:48 PM ^
The most severe and debilitating long term effects weren't known until recently though. Up until somewhat recently, if you got knocked out during a game, you just got your "bell rung" and you went back in if you could function. This was true for a long time for virtually all contact sports.I don't know what information or study there ever was for the NFL to cover up. It's not as if the NFL would conduct these studies themselves. That's not the business that they are in. Even now that these effects are known, the league is still almost helpless to stop them without fundamentally changing how the game is played. In the meantime, the rules to protect players have gotten stricter. Hockey and boxing are in the exact same boat.
There's also no evidence that had this information been public, anyone who suffered from these concussions would have passed on the opportunity to play in the NFL. Al Toon suffered 9 concussions in the league and yet his son still ended up in the NFL.
August 23rd, 2013 at 4:49 PM ^
Just to be clear, I'm not passing judgment on the NFL. A lot of these brain trauma issues are pretty cutting edge, as far as our understanding of them. It seems perfectly reasonable that the NFL didn't know any more about them than they appeared to until recently. On the flip side, the NFL has a vested interest in claiming ignorance about them as long as possible. I honestly don't have an informed opinion about the NFL on this particular issue.
I was just saying that it's ridiculous to claim that the expose is inherently biased and to dismiss it completely because of the title. It sounds very much like people like football and maybe played football and are looking for any excuse to dismiss this stuff out of hand than really confront the idea that the sport is far more dangerous than it appears.
But the jury is still out. There is a lot of research work to be done. Plus, in reading this thread, it's clear that most people have a limited grasp on presenting and understanding statistics.
August 23rd, 2013 at 3:22 PM ^
August 23rd, 2013 at 2:24 PM ^
I actually like it when they let me know up front that PBS, Foxnews, MSNBC, ESPN, ABC, CBS, etc are behind a documentary. That way I can watch it more for entertainment value rather than thinking it is credible in anyway.
August 23rd, 2013 at 4:02 PM ^
August 23rd, 2013 at 3:48 PM ^
August 23rd, 2013 at 4:12 PM ^
Its a shame how little people really want to discuss the facts, and instead want to react based on irrational fears.
Aside from bashing Macolm Gladwell (again), it makes some compelling points that the super-sensitive among us never think about. It reminds me of the being afraid to fly or afraid to wim in the ocean because of sharks:
The evidence, in sum, while admittedly incomplete, suggests that football is risky but not fantastically so—especially when compared with many other popular sports and pastimes.
Between 2002 and 2012, according to the University of North Carolina Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, there were an average of 3.8 fatalities a year directly attributable to football, fewer than for weight lifting (an average of 6.3 fatalities a year) or even amusement park rides (4.4 fatalities a year). Mountain climbing produces more fatalities—an average of 25 a year. So does horseback riding, with more than 100 deaths a year, to say nothing of bicycle riding, which killed 677 people in 2011 alone, and swimming, which kills more than 3,500 people a year. (Granted, more people ride horses or go swimming than play football, but football players typically spend more time on their sport than casual hobbyists spend on theirs.)
Simply being outside produces more deaths than playing football. In 2012, 28 Americans died in lightning strikes. Driving is even more deadly. Given that almost 35,000 Americans died in 2009 in motor vehicle accidents, a football player is far more likely to die on his way to a game or practice than on the field itself.
Not all sports injuries result in death, of course. And, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, football does produce more minor injuries—sprained knees, bruised thighs, and the like—than most other sports (although fewer than basketball). But football produces roughly as many serious injuries resulting in hospitalization or death as does swimming or horseback riding and a lot fewer than bicycling, exercising with fitness equipment or driving all-terrain vehicles, mopeds and minibikes. The last category produces almost three times as many serious injuries annually as football, but it receives far less public scrutiny.
August 23rd, 2013 at 4:25 PM ^
People really do seem to lack perspective on issues. That's not to say that we shouldn't continue to try and make the game safer. I think strict HGH testing can definitely help.
August 23rd, 2013 at 4:34 PM ^
I agree.
August 23rd, 2013 at 5:55 PM ^
August 23rd, 2013 at 4:15 PM ^
Between 2002 and 2012, according to the University of North Carolina Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, there were an average of 3.8 fatalities a year directly attributable to football, fewer than for weight lifting (an average of 6.3 fatalities a year) or even amusement park rides (4.4 fatalities a year). Mountain climbing produces more fatalities—an average of 25 a year. So does horseback riding, with more than 100 deaths a year, to say nothing of bicycle riding, which killed 677 people in 2011 alone, and swimming, which kills more than 3,500 people a year. (Granted, more people ride horses or go swimming than play football, but football players typically spend more time on their sport than casual hobbyists spend on theirs.)These stats are misleading. How many football games are there compared to amusement park rides? There's millions of amusement park rides per day! There is a much smaller set of football practices and even more significantly smaller number of games. Same can be said for soccer (twice as many contests as football in high school) and any other number of sports. You cannot compare football deaths to deaths from people swimming without differentiating competitive swimming from swimming on beaches, in lakes, etc. Those stats mean very little.
August 23rd, 2013 at 4:33 PM ^
Millions of amusement park rides a day? There are 400 amusement parks "and attractions" not sure how many of those have "rides" that cause injury, but it is surely a subset.
How many kids play HS football every year? Over a million. And then college and pros. They practice every weekday too.
How about horesback riding? How often does that happen everyday? Any idea? Do people usually do it for multiple hours a day like football practice or just an hour ride?
How about weight lifting? I rarely see anyone weight lifting in my suburban gym and we are a fat nation. How often does that happen?
And mountain climbing? how do you address that? Do you think there are more people doing that?
You can't just write off all the statistics because you don't believe the "amusement park one" ...(despite offering no facts to undermine the stats). try addressing them all.
Try telling me that having your son play football is going to be more likely to lead to his death than teaching him to ride a bike. I just don't see any support for that argument.
August 23rd, 2013 at 5:25 PM ^
Yeesh, chill out there. I made a point about the fact that we cannot compare these statistics. It would be much better to compare rates.
No I didn't compare mountain climbing. It seems stupid to compare mountain climbing, to me, because it is not a team sport. Just as stupid to compare to amusement park rides, which was kinda my point. On that:
Here's another misleading stat that comparing to football is dumb:
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/amusement-rides-hurt-4-400-kids-year-larg…
4,400 kids are injured in amusement rides per year.
I would hazard a guess that 1,000 kids are hurt playing football per day during the school year.
What does that all mean? Nothing. We're comparing apples and oranges.
August 23rd, 2013 at 5:48 PM ^
Anyway, I just don't see that it is all that dangerous in the grand scheme of things, but the reactionaries keep pushing an agenda without thinking about it.
August 23rd, 2013 at 4:43 PM ^
Also, Millenium Force can handle 1,600 riders per day. Let's say they get 1,000 per day. That's just one coaster at one park. I don't think my estimate of 1,000,000+ riders of roller coasters and amusement rides per day in America is that far off.
August 23rd, 2013 at 9:38 PM ^
This one's crazier:
Simply being outside produces more deaths than playing football. In 2012, 28 Americans died in lightning strikes. Driving is even more deadly. Given that almost 35,000 Americans died in 2009 in motor vehicle accidents, a football player is far more likely to die on his way to a game or practice than on the field itself.
How many total man-hours are spent outside in the US, vs man-hours spent playing football? I'm guessing the ratio is a bit more than 9:1. But the author implies, and Klima explicity states elsewhere in the thread, that being outside is more dangerous than playing football. (Kind of an aside, but I'm also guessing that a fair portion of those lightning deaths happen during activities that are generally acknowledged as high-risk activities that are to be avoided--not mere mountain climbing, but the stupid kind that leaves you above tree line in an afternoon thunderstorm. Or staying on the golf course with a club in your hands. Or swimming in a storm.)
And the second sentence draws an explicit conclusion about rates without bothering to actually compare rates. I suspect driving will turn out to be a bit more immediately dangerous than football (these statistics don't include long-term effects, of course, just deaths due to immediate injury) but you'd never know from this.
August 23rd, 2013 at 4:35 PM ^
While I don't have a problem with these kinds of exposés being made, we should keep in mind that this is just one of many health issues that ex-football players face, and by no means the most common. Our society seems incapable of focusing on more than one health issue at a time for some reason.
Heart disease is a huge problem for ex-football players (the number that have died in their 40s to heart problems is staggering), but it seems like it's not as "sexy" a topic of discussion as concussions, so it gets ignored.
August 23rd, 2013 at 6:35 PM ^
I love football as much as most of you, but it seems silly to claim something is biased when you are just as biased from the other perspective. My son won't be allowed to play football until high school if he wants. Death is the least of my concerns when it comes to football.
August 23rd, 2013 at 7:01 PM ^
People are hyping this doc based on the trailer but are they going to talk about or expose anything that we don’t already know?
August 23rd, 2013 at 7:17 PM ^
Some of you need to take off your fan hat and see the reality of what constant head banging, especially along the line, can do to a person's brain. It's not the big hits. It's the repetitive helmet knocking and the brain rattling around in the helmet (which actually makes the vibrations worse).
It's bad for people to even have happen once. A college player literally will have had it happen over 1000 times in his life if he plays through.
I love the sport too, but it is only a game and it is becoming increasingly known that there are certain aspects of it which are very damaging.
Deal with it with an eye towards something besides your personal entertainment.
August 23rd, 2013 at 7:54 PM ^
It reminds me of the mad cow disease scare and the bird flu panic.
Idiots will always have irrational fears , I just hoped fellow Michigan alums were able to look at the reality (I.e. even one hit is bad, but compared to the real world risks of being alive and going outdoors to do other things, its nothing to get about) and not be taken up with the latest fad cause. Lets go back to how unhealthy food has become and our overheating to face on of our real risks.
It's not about fandom, its about not being ignorant.
October 9th, 2013 at 9:40 AM ^
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/league-of-denial/
- We see slices of ex-players’ brains tainted by chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
- We meet a surgeon who helped discover the disease, and who talks about how the politics of football essentially destroyed his career.
- We go inside the NFL’s odd decisions to rely on physicians like rheumatologist Elliot Pellman, who had no real competence in assessing or treating brain trauma, to set the league’s health and safety strategy.
http://consumer.healthday.com/cognitive-health-information-26/concussio…
I love Michigan football, but as a pediatrician, I continually worry about the long term effects of the repetitive impacts that my young patients/footballers sustain. This article is alarming about the possibility of permanent brain injury, even in the absence of a concussion.
We are recruiting younger and younger players, and it seems that the intensity of competition is increasing in these younger age groups. Are we as fans contributing to this trend? I worry.