Boston, MA, Nov. 30 — Two of the most important pioneers in the identification and ongoing research into the terrible impacts of repeated blows to the head in contact sports opened the annual conference on the subject held at Boston University today. Dr. Ann McKee and Dr. Bob Stern made powerful presentations of the state of the research this morning. The reports add up to a scathing indictment of the impact of tackle football at all ages, and of the stonewalling by the National Football League in the face of ongoing efforts by Boston University’s CTE Center, hosts of the two-day conference, to learn and publicize more about it.
CTE, short for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, has been identified by the work of Dr. McKee and Dr. Stern in the last decade as a condition of brain damage caused by repeated blows to the head and is found most prevalent in football players, even though at present it can only be diagnosed by examining the brains of victims who are deceased. A lot of the content of Dr. Stern’s remarks, in particular, focused on efforts to find ways to diagnose the condition among living victims.
When a spotlight began to be put on the condition a decade ago (including in the 2015 film Concussion, starring Will Smith), the National Football League, Dr. Stern said, initially donated $16 million to a research effort but the money, which came through the National Institutes of Health, was held up, encountering what Stern called a “long, long, long wait in the summer of silence” of 2015 as the NFL sought to influence decisions on who the researchers would be. It took a letter to the NFL from a group of congressmen to free up the funds for an eight-year study, called “Diagnose CTE,” at Boston University that was due to end the first day of this conference.
This fall, the CTE Center released a study showing that the condition also profoundly impacts persons under age 30. It examined the brains of 152 contact sport athletes under 30, finding that 41.4 percent had CTE. Of the brains found to have CTE, 71 percent were amateur athletes. McKee referenced data showing that fewer than 1 percent of the general population has CTE.
The study also found that CTE became more and more debilitating as exposure grew over time. A video of comments made by an 18 year old named Alexander, who subsequently committed suicide, was shown. He described the “racing thoughts, depression and voices taking over everything” that he was suffering. He subsequently shot himself in the head.
The eight-year CTE study was also held up by the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic, though in March 2020, just as that pandemic hit, the evidence for racial disparities and social determinants of health related to CTE was introduced.
Dr. Stern noted that the ability to diagnose the condition among living victims is advancing, “but we are not there yet.”
Dr. McKee said that millions are at risk, including 20 million high school and college players of football, rugby, soccer and ice hockey, and another 20,000 who have played or play in the NFL. She said a study of deceased NFL players found that 110 of 111 had the condition, and that 91 percent of college players and 20 percent of high school players had it. Mood changes, depression and motor problems are among the most prevalent effects and that they are found most prevalently in football among wide receivers and defensive backs.
