Editor's Note

Those of us who follow sports, particularly football fans, likely are aware of the term chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. In the past year, numerous headlines have announced the deaths of professional athletes—representing football and hockey—and the autopsies that revealed that their brain tissue was riddled with a buildup of protein. Some medical professionals believe that a correlation exists between protein buildup and brain degeneration. Continuing research indicates that CTE results from repeated blows to the head or concussions. These athletes suffered debilitating degradation of brain function.

It wasn’t until our staff asked what all of this concussion talk means to everyday people that it became clear that consumers might be getting lied to, misinformed and ripped off. Those at greatest risk: our children. Makers of sports equipment for young athletes and developers of testing software sell their products on the promise of protection for our kids. Unfortunately the promises are half-truths, at best. No matter the advances in technology that are incorporated into football helmets and other headgear, or the increased availability of baseline testing programs, the whole truth is that you can’t protect your kids except to keep them out of sports.

“I’m not aware of any scientific data with any of these products . . . that substantially reduce the number of concussions or the effects of concussions,” says Dr. Ann McKee, who is a co-director of Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. “But because [parents] are all concerned about the welfare of our student athletes, we tend to grab the next product that promises to have a beneficial effect.”

So, hear this: Your decision to permit your children to play football, hockey and soccer, in particular, must go beyond weighing the likelihood of tragic injury. Routine collisions between football players on the line of scrimmage, seemingly innocuous blows to the helmet as hockey players crash the glass, headers across the box in soccer slowly can damage your child’s brain in a way that will affect him/her years down the road.

It’s been my judgment that all of the good that comes from organized youth football isn’t worth the risk of significant injury. I’ve never been able to dismiss the potential of spinal
injury. I’m thankful that my boys accepted and respected my decision. But my decision turns out to have been made lacking awareness of perhaps the most significant element: risk of concussion.

When I discussed my view on playing football with my sons, I told them that my decision shouldn’t be compared with that of other parents. The decision is a personal one, and there’s no right or wrong choice. Further, I never would try to change other parents’ mind if they permitted participatation in contact sports. But now, enlightened as I am—about concussions in general, the limited protection that’s available and the iffy state of post-concussion testing—I find myself of a different mind. I’m sure that many of you weighed the issues in deciding whether to permit your kids to play football, hockey or soccer; that you thought twice about encouraging participation. Knowing what I now know, I urge you to consider the matter once more. Read “Collision Course: The Truth About Concussion Prevention." And then, I encourage you to think again.