Slashdot Mirror
Brain Disease Found In NFL Players
SternisheFan sends this excerpt from ABC:
"On the heels of the latest NFL suicide, researchers announced today that 34 NFL players whose brains were studied suffered from CTE, a degenerative brain disease brought on by repeated hits to the head that results in confusion, depression and, eventually, dementia. The study was released just days after the murder-suicide of Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. It's not yet known what triggered Belcher's action, but they mirror other NFL players who have committed suicide. Researchers at Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy published the largest case series study of CTE to date (abstract), according to the center. Of the 85 brains donated by the families of deceased veterans and athletes with histories of repeated head trauma, they found CTE in 68 of them. Of those, 34 were professional football players, nine others played college football and six played only high school football. Of the 35 professional football players' brains donated, only one had no evidence of the disease, according to the study."
It's a good thing we protect our youth from conditions like this.
Do we really need a study to show that repeated hits to the head result in confusion, depression and dementia? If so, I'd like to sign up to be the guy on the research team that whacks this researcher on the head repeatedly so he can discover the effects.
I just want to help. Really I do.
Sent from my ENIAC
Going to be interesting to see if Belcher's brain had this disease, seeing as it was spread all over the parking lot.
This has been studied time and time again.
Any sport that involves any repeated impact to the head - whether football, boxing or soccer will result in brain injury.
I plraled futbawl sence I wurz 5. It made my dad happy, and me happer. I never get suicidal, and I got hit in ther head hunnreds of times in those years. Preas don't look at my record and see my addiction to oxys and wife beating as any evidence to suppurt ur stupid claims either.
Silence is a state of mime.
Nonsense. This is Slashdot. I'd hope that they'd at least include one line specifying how much more prevalent brain disease was, what the sample size was, and a statement saying their findings were statistically significant. After all, we're nerds. We need some facts to back up the things we already know.
Sorry to say this, but, it's actually a whole lot easier than you think...
Not when you look like me. It was my life goal for decades until I finally gave up. It was just too difficult. I had to go back to electrical engineering and plasma physics. Much easier. If you're a pretty boy it's easy. If you're not it actually is a major achievement.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
The term "football" is in reference to playing the game "on foot" as opposed to mounted on a horse like polo. Many early versions of games called football in the middle ages involved practically no kicking of a ball at all. The direct precursors to Association Football, or Soccer, allowed one to not only touch the ball with your hands, but catch it, too (i.e. the fair catch, which still survives with Soccer's cousins Rugby and American Football).
As for the brain damage with the North American version of the game, I'm not sure if there is much of a solution. There is a common belief that all the hard shell padding and hard helmets are to blame, and going "naked" like rugby would solve the problem. Players wouldn't feel as invincible and their instinct for self-preservation would kick in, reducing the force of their blocks and tackles. The data doesn't support this theory. There have been positive brain trauma studies of this sort going back 80 years ago during the age of leather helmets and soft padding, so reducing protection is probably not the answer. The nature of the game is simply predisposed to hard hits both in blocking and tackling players. The goal is to always get extra yardage or jar the ball loose. That's not an issue in rugby where there is no line to gain, the ball is loose after every play, and there is no blocking allowed. I'm not sure you could make the game safer without so radically changing its nature that it would essentially become something completely different from football as we know it.
I mean look at the size of these guys today. Even the wide receivers are huge. Bigger, stronger, faster...all to feed our insatiable appetite for violence disguised as sport. In hockey it's the fights. In nascar it's the crashes. In football it's the big hit. Add to that the enormous sums of money available to the stars of these sports and it's no wonder they will do whatever is necessary to win. All to the delight of the fat, shirtless drunk spewing profanities on every play.
The athletes are simply too big and strong. Could you imagine Fran Tarkenton playing in today's NFL? He would get killed. The equipment cannot protect them adequately. The NFL is stuck between giving the fans what they want on the one hand and getting sued on the other hand by crippled ex players. Cutting back on the head shots is a good start but how much can you really do to prevent permanent injury?
What's the alternative? No challenges, no sports so kids don't get hurt? Hand them an iPad, sit them on the couch with a nanny and feed them cereal? Then get a shrink to subscribe Ritalin once they get messed up from high carb diet, no exercise and low self esteem?
Just let them play some ball.
Then no one will be able to get it.
Three types of people commit suicide. The confused, the desperate, and the cowardly.
Imagine that you are 80 years old and have $1 million in the bank. One day your doctor tells you that you are incurably ill and will start suffering unbearable pain tomorrow. The doctors can give you additional 100 days of life for the low cost of $10K per day. Then you will die anyway, and your family - or needy charities - will have nothing. You decide to commit suicide instead. Will you be confused, desperate or cowardly as you jump from the roof?
If you don't like my example then feel free to imagine a war hero who accepts a mission that will save thousands of men but will have him killed. Who will be that hero, using the short list of options that you provided?
My point here is simple. Suicide can be also a rational choice.
Belcher was no victim. He murdered his girlfriend in cold blood and then took the easy way out by killing himself before he could be brought to justice. I suppose his act could be described as rational (having just destroyed his entire life, what reason was there to go on?) But it wasn't brave, or honorable.
It's possible that repeated hits to the head fucked him up, but we don't allow "I was fucked up your honor" as an excuse for other people, such as drunk drivers.
Baby Orcas have a way better survival rate when they have living grandparents. Seems that growing old and helping your children raise your grandchildren enhances the chances of survival of your genes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
It's possible that repeated hits to the head fucked him up, but we don't allow "I was fucked up your honor" as an excuse for other people, such as drunk drivers.
Are you an idiot by genetics, or did you play too much football? Never heard of: "Not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect"?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Darwin would have you losing to these guys since by the time their disease develops they have already slept with plenty of desirable women. If jumping off a cliff would make you more attractive to the opposite sex, Darwinism would make us all cliff jumpers.
Athletic Darwinism has its supporters.
There are also animals where the survival chances of offspring is enhanced by the sacrifice of their parents.
Maybe the financial benefits of playing the NFL, which can be passed to offspring, outweigh the potential downside of having a shorter life.
That's not exactly an easy verdict to get.
I work part-time at a state mental hospital, and through that job have met two people who actually qualified for the label and yet are normally well-behaved enough that they can be allowed out of the criminally-insane building. One killed his parents and a sibling while home on a break from college. If you don't treat his psychosis, he becomes withdrawn and violent. If you treat it too well, though, he comes out of the fog, remembers what he did, and goes into severe depression over it. Tough balancing act. The other is an ex cop who came home one day and tried a murder-suicide. The murder worked. The suicide didn't. Messy.
Actually we do allow "I was fucked up your honor" for drunk drivers, especially football players.
Back in 1998, Leonard Little of the St. Louis Rams killed a mother of two who was crossing a street in downtown St. Louis late at night (on her way to work). It was his birthday, and he was quite drunk (.19 BAC).
He got a 90 day sentence with work release so he could practice with the team. He also had some probation and public service time (which I bet was served through football sponsored stuff).
He didn't miss a game and, unfortunately, he continued to play for the Rams for several years. I hate to say it, but I wish mental problems upon him as that would represent some justice in a situation where there was none.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Little
BlameBillCosby.com
Except that most NFL players have relatively short careers and are making the NFL minimum wage. (Still quite well paid for playing a game, no doubt, but they aren't all making millions per year). Couple that with the fact that the types that usually make the NFL aren't exactly known for their financial acumen, and you'll find that a lot of NFL players end up broke within a few years of retirement. I don't remember the exact numbers and can't be bothered to look it up right now, but it was a fairly significant percentage, IIRC.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal