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Growing Evidence of Football Causing Brain Damage
ideonexus writes "NFL Linebacker Junior Seau's suicide this week bears a striking similarity to NFL Safety Dave Duerson's suicide last year, who shot himself in the chest so that doctors could study his brain, where they found the same chronic traumatic encephalopathy that has been found in the brains of 20 other dead football players. Malcom Gladwell stirred up controversy in 2009 by comparing professional football to dog fighting for the trauma the game inflicts on players' brains. With mounting evidence that the repeated concussions football players receive during their careers causing a lifetime of brain problems, it raises serious concerns about America's most popular sport and ethical questions for its fanbase."
Seau was a great person AND a great football player. He did a lot for kids in our community. He was well-known for his intensity and charm; it is so sad that he was feeling down with no way out and this is the result. Rest in peace.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
You are misusing logic. If we went by that standard, nothing would be responsible for anything.
It is reasonable to assume that thousands of head-on collisions would damage the brain. Even one car crash can cause lifelong tissue damage; imagine what hundreds or thousands do.
That stipulated, you look for evidence. No-one had actually looked before, not really; we're sociologically prone to not look, because we like football. It's like asking people to look for brain damage caused by kneeling to pray to God, and I don't think that's too extreme a comparison.
Evidence was looked for, and found in abundance. Football players who received such shocks to the brain show, post-mortem, significant damage to the tissues. Live players who submit to tests show similar damage to their living brains. Such damage is not normally found in people who do not receive shocks to the brain for a living. It is found in those who do.
At this point, this is a done deal. Throwing people around and suddenly slamming them to a stop causes brain damage resulting in reduced capacity, depression, strange behavior, and eventually, for some, death by repeated trauma.
Now. What do we do about it? Football, American style, is crippling and killing the players. Do we stop? If not, why not? How far does the human delusion go in the face of reality?
It is not just the NFL. The NHL had three player suicides this summer alone. All three of these players were enforcer type players who routinely fought to earn their salaries. The link between professional athletes getting hit in the head a lot and the issues you described is getting hard to deny.
Emmit Smith suggested returning to leather helmets for just this reason. The helmet has become a weapon. It does not matter what the "rules" say because the profit incentive will always provide an end around (hehe). The team doctors will likely bow to the pressures of the owners who are writing the bazillion dollar salary checks, and clear the players for play. Unless the NFL is prepared to make a real stand in favor of people, as opposed to profits, (yeah, like that MIGHT happen)..the players will continue to suffer