Monday, the NFL look to have made an unprecedented move when the League’s senior VP of safety and health Jeff Miller acknowledged the pretty apparent link between head shots and CTE within the game of football.
During a discussion coordinated by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce, Miller was asked a question by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) whether or not there’s a link between football and brain diseases like CTE.
Miller’s response was about as straight forward as you can get saying “The answer to that question is certainly yes.”
Obviously too at this point, Miller’s response wasn’t based on a hunch which he fully acknowledged. It was based on esearch done by Dr. Ann McKee of Boston University where she diagnosed CTE in the brains of 90 of 94 former NFL players.
Additionally Miller added:
I think the broader point, and the one that your question gets to, is what that necessarily means, and where do we go from here with that information.
Fair and encouraging considering the NFL may be pulling the wool off their own eyes when it comes to what seems like an obvious connection.
Tuesday however was a totally different story as the NFL back tracked on those comments from Miller in a way the NFL only can by spinning the facts as well as any Donald Trump supporter when it comes to inciting violence at political rallies.
“He was discussing Dr. Mckee’s findings and made the additional point that a lot more questions need to be answered,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement. “He said that the experts should speak to the state of the science.”
“We want the facts, so we can develop better solutions,” McCarthy continued. “And that’s why we’re deeply committed to advancing medical research on head trauma, including CTE, to let the science go where the science goes. We know the answers will come as this field of study continues to advance.”
Well NFL, it looks like science is taking you down the road of head shots most certainly being linked to brain diseases like CTE. But who knows how long the NFL will continue to throw their arms up in the air and continue to shrug off blatantly obvious conclusions that are being made BY SCIENCE.
h/t: The Big Lead
