NFL Concussion Docs on Slow Train to Research

Imagine you’re a sports league with players developing depression and Alzheimer’s disease-like symptoms from concussions. Would you appoint a neurologist to be head of your research committee on brain injury? If you’re the NFL, maybe not. But now the head of the league’s efforts to study concussions has resigned. That may sound, but the league’s […]

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Imagine you're a sports league with players developing depression and Alzheimer's disease-like symptoms from concussions. Would you appoint a neurologist to be head of your research committee on brain injury?

If you're the NFL, maybe not.

But now the head of the league's efforts to study concussions has resigned. That may sound, but the league's priorities still seem warped.

The committee will have two co-chairs -- one of whom has written about how it may be OK for professional football players and perhaps even high school players to return to the field after suffering a concussion earlier in a game.

Meanwhile, the committee doesn't sound like it's in any big hurry:

[A co-chair] said that studying the long-term effects of concussions on retired players would be among his committee’s most important work. He said that the study will take at least three years.

Three years? Makes you wonder who's really brain damaged.

NFL doctor quits [NYT]