Yes, we’re late. We got tied up on Tuesday.
But, in our defense, TMQ isn’t timely this week either.
After the jump, 2,000 words, no pictures (except the header), and one subject in this week’s TMQ…
…which can be summed up as “Ban youth football.”
We could probably just leave that there and call it a week. But we’re trying to be less lazy and stupid, so we’ll engage a little with TMQ’s shortened column.
We think TMQ has a good point about the nature of this study: “…the only brains studied were those of persons who were very likely to have a degenerative neurological condition”. Basically, the people who were sampled were people who were already suspected of having CTE and agreed to be tested after death.
So how do we get past this? Would it be a good thing to do this kind of brain analysis as a part of every autopsy? Would this require family permission? And how expensive is CTE testing? And it seems as if there’s a possibility that CTE may be tied to genetics: should we also do DNA testing to verify the presence or absence of CTE genetic markers?
Well, we know that CTE isn’t limited to just football players: there are documented instances in hockey and baseball players. As for TMQ’s other questions, again, would increased CTE testing during autopsies help resolve these questions? And if CTE testing is expensive, would economies of scale drive down the price? Or do we need to develop better, cheaper tests?
(CTE can only be diagnosed post-death. But what exactly is the process for diagnosing it? Any neuroscientists in the audience?)
How much of that is tied to them being in, and maintaining, peak physical condition during their playing days? Perhaps not the “less likely to commit suicide” part, but isn’t that explicable by “former NFL players” frequently having a great support system of friends, fans, and former teammates?
This includes us. We stopped watching boxing partly because it became a cesspit, partly because it stopped airing on network TV, and partly because of the health effects being hit in the head repeatedly had on boxers. We don’t watch MMA because we have the same concerns. And we’re thinking about pulling out of football completely for this reason (and, to be honest, some others).
Honestly, sometimes, we feel like football is the modern day equivalent of Roman gladiatorial combat. Is it worth it to us to continue tacitly condoning this, when all we (mostly) do is put it on as background noise while we do something else?
Something about TMQ’s “they bought their tickets, they knew the risks, I say let them crash” and “well, they were better off playing than not playing” argument bothers us, though we can’t quite put a finger on what. Maybe part of it is Easterbrook’s argument that adult football players are entitled to assume the risks of the game, while he seems frequently unwilling to allow other adults to choose their own risks.
We’d really like to see a medical citation for the second part of that statement.
Is it possible, though, that the type of person who is directed (or self-directs) into youth football at that age is already prone to these issues? Is there anything that actually indicates participation in youth football before age 12 causes irreversible physical brain changes?
“…cannot be said yet to have proven”. So how do we prove this?
Aren’t “neurological hazards” a big reason why parents make their kids wear bike helmets?
Would this “societal harm” be the “cannot be said yet to have proven” decline in mental faculties late in life?
TMQ goes on for about 250 words minimizing Frank Gifford’s CTE. After all, he was 84 when he died:
We don’t know, but it makes us kind of uncomfortable that TMQ singles out Gifford, who still has living family members, for this argument.
This is also a good argument for more study and research. If we can figure out why football players who are not old have these problems, maybe we can reverse them – not just for those football players, but everyone, both old and young. Maybe in our lifetime we will cheat death.
Can we get a ruling from a 12 year old on this?
Question: other than the benefits of physical activity, which kids could get from unstructured play, is there any good reason for children to participate in any kind of organized sport before they reach high school?
And that’s pretty much it. Easterbrook promises a normal column next week, so we’ll be back then.