Controversy brewing around the NFL, concussions, research funding and conflicts of interest

dementia_pet_imagingThe NFL Needs Dis­tance From Its Brain-Injury Fund­ing (The Wall Street Journal):

Despite its immense pop­u­lar­i­ty among spec­ta­tors and play­ers, foot­ball is fac­ing an exis­ten­tial threat due to the long-term health risks pre­sent­ed by repet­i­tive injuries to the head. A new dis­ease has even been asso­ci­at­ed with these injuries—chronic trau­mat­ic encephalopa­thy, or CTE, the sub­ject of the recent Will Smith movie, “Con­cus­sion.”

Evi­dence com­piled by ESPN’s “Out­side the Lines” revealed that the NFL has favored some league-friend­ly sci­en­tists over oth­ers by direct­ing where fund­ing is award­ed. There is a trou­bling asso­ci­a­tion between views on the sci­ence of con­cus­sions and the close­ness of rela­tion­ship of some sci­en­tists with the NFL. Despite some fund­ing going to inde­pen­dent researchers, one researcher quipped, “It felt like we were going back to the stage where the peo­ple who were fund­ed by Big Tobac­co were say­ing smok­ing is not harmful.”

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SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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