Fear has created a market for concussion information and products, and the media is overreacting to sensational but unsubstantiated pronouncements and factoids.

Man is this true? Everyone now spouts statistics like they are facts, I've heard some crazy numbers given from people like 80% of football players have head injuries while playing, and 90% of all NFL players have long term affects. It's almost come to the point that if a person gives me a percentage on anything I automatically think them a lier.

Each year, more than 3 million kids play youth football; a million more play in high school; about 70,000 play at the college level; and about 2,500 are professional football players. The medical literature on Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy reveals that in the past 10 years, a total of 63 football players were diagnosed with CTE, almost all professional athletes, out of approximately 44 million players.

63 cases out 44 million, not exactly a smoking gun is it?

Research has not quantified the almost-certain risk factors, aside from concussions such as genetics, pharmacological and toxicological factors. So, is there a CTE epidemic and is withdrawing participation in organized contact sports the remedy? Our answers are no and no.

I didn't think so, Concussions aren't the devil after all.

 

 

Neurologists Weigh Risk to Kids of Contact Sports - Athletic Business

Unfortunate attempt by these two doctors.

 

They criticize other authors for listing statistics without footnotes but quote numbers of diagnoses among athletes that come from nameless "medical literature" on the subject and fail to mention attributable sources themselves. They also fail to put those statistics into context by comparing them to the cases of CTE among the general population.

 

All these two did was add to the noise rather than provide anything helpful.

Unfortunate attempt by these two doctors.

 

They criticize other authors for listing statistics without footnotes but quote numbers of diagnoses among athletes that come from nameless "medical literature" on the subject and fail to mention attributable sources themselves. They also fail to put those statistics into context by comparing them to the cases of CTE among the general population.

 

All these two did was add to the noise rather than provide anything helpful.

 

Their comments were more of an Op Ed made by experts, rather than a case study. I've included a link to some of their research. Please take a look and see if this type of presentation works better with the non medical audience:

 

http://www.kyats.com/Resources/Documents/Petraglia%20Al%20et%20al.,%202012.pdf

 

You come off like a global warming alarmist defending the voodoo

Their comments were more of an Op Ed made by experts, rather than a case study. I've included a link to some of their research. Please take a look and see if this type of presentation works better with the non medical audience:

 

http://www.kyats.com/Resources/Documents/Petraglia%20Al%20et%20al.,%202012.pdf

 

You come off like a global warming alarmist defending the voodoo

 

OH MY GOSH! NOT THE VOODOO!

 

You come off like a political reactionary that doesn't like to have his assumptions examined more closely.

 

Look, this has nothing to do with their research which, by the way, is really fascinating and in the article you posted actually states "Concussion has become a silent epidemic in athletics and among military personnel." Anyone doing research into how PTSD is affecting soldiers and finding better ways to treat it is doing great work.

 

If the point of the article is to say "Hey everybody, we don't really know what's going on here and before we jump to the conclusion that football is killing people maybe we should sit back and look at what's going on.", then that's fine; it's an admirable sentiment that I can get behind.

 

But they explicitly call out news writers for not footnoting or referencing studies in articles and THEN DO THE SAME BLOODY THING which is lazy at best and deliberately misleading at worst (if their stats turn out not to be backed up by factual evidence).

Would have responded earlier, but there were some black helicopters overhead...

 

 

I am reactionary, yes. I'm tired of the sport I love being vilified by a "Nancy" President and lemming like mothers. More kids have been hurt in my area by riding BMX bikes than by playing football. But you don't see that on the news.

 

I found this article to be something that the caregiver would have said to me first hand, if i was sitting in their office. I can go and check their research (tons of it), audit their footnotes, etc., but why bother? This was again more of an op ed than anything.