Whats the truth about the risks to players? I believe in empirically determined, scientifically valid data. He's clearly distressed by what he's hearing. And the medical examiner requested that I come down they've never had such a big case before, I'm an expert in this field to help him. Second Initial if given. PETER KEATING: The threat was that the doctors and trainers, neuropsychologists, maybe owners, maybe commissioners and ex-commissioners, were going to have to testify under oath as to what they knew and when. I'm really wondering, on some level, if every single football player doesn't have this. JUNIOR SEAU: You have to sacrifice your body. The league actually never got around to looking at it in any kind of valid way. NARRATOR: The committee members believed Dr. McKee could not answer two important questions. In 1997, he went to see a lawyer. Additional support for The FRONTLINE Dispatch comes from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. And it was probably 15 members of the committee. So he pulls out this stun gun and goes "Bzz, bzz." To verify accuracy, check the appropriate style guide. NARRATOR: The study went to the heart of the prevalence question. But one night, in a private meeting, he brought his CTE slides and finally met face to face with one of the NFL's doctors. NARRATOR: Such an advanced case of CTE had never been found in such a young person. NARRATOR: A number of prominent scientists believe she has overstated the dangers of playing football. HARRY CARSON, Author, Captain For Life: These players come down with dementia. PETER KEATING, Reporter, ESPN: The league officials, the doctors and scientists serving on the MTBI committee, not only disputed those findings, they went after Dr. Omalu with a vengeance. "This is just not the right thing to happen.". The problem is it's a journalist issue. And then, all of a sudden, I wouldn't hear from him. And let's see Minnesota has it! MARK FAINARU-WADA: McKee is saying, "Look, this is very much an issue at the core of the game, of offensive lineman and defensive linemen pounding the crud out of each other on every single play, on every single down and every single practice, and there's no getting around that.". STEVE FAINARU: Omalu is a junior pathologist in the Allegheny County coroner's office, but the people he published with were one of the leading Alzheimer's disease experts in the country, one of the leading neuropathologists in the country, and one of the most well-known coroners in the country. If 10% of mothers in this country would begin to perceive football as a dangerous sport, that is the end of football. He soon replaced the rheumatologist Dr. Elliot Pellman and promoted the neurologist Dr. Ira Casson. NFL NARRATOR: When you talk about big-hitting safeties, the Eagles Donnie Dawkins always emerges. ANNOUNCER: It's still wild and woolly and I love 'em that way. Early in his career, he worked as former commissioner Pete Rozelle's driver. It wasn't a supposition. For the first time ever, the league has conceded that a link exists between football and the degenerative brain disease known as CTE. NARRATOR: Back in the lab, McKee had seen another surprising case. They basically told him to go away and never come back. JANE LEAVY: This is a process that is awe-inspiring in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Like, he didn't have that stamina physically. Steve Fainaru & Mark Fainaru-Wada. Dr. ANN McKEE: Those sub-concussive hits, those hits that don't even rise to the level of what we call a concussion, or symptoms, just playing the game can be dangerous. And I said, "Well, you're in the hospital." The Super Bowl is a spectacle. ANNOUNCER: [ABC "Monday Night Football," 1983] vivid picturization of the excitement. Dr. HENRY FEUER: If we for some reason coming came across as being disrespectful, then I would say that everybody else we interviewed over the 15 years must have felt the same way. NARRATOR: Dr. Omalu believed he saw physical evidence of the long-term damage playing football could have on the brain. And I took as much brain trauma as anybody. During this whole run of research that's being published, the day of reckoning, where the league has to answer to somebody about what it's doing about concussions, just keeps getting pushed off and pushed off and pushed off. I really, sincerely wished it didn't cross my path of life, seriously. NARRATOR: Dr. Casson declined to be interviewed by FRONTLINE. Grand Canyon University. I'm a man of science. NARRATOR: Almost two decades after the NFL founded its first scientific committee to research the issue, the league continues to insist the evidence of a link between CTE and football is unclear. We just need more information on it in terms of, you know, what exactly is the incidence and the risk. I think I have more than enough reasons to believe that I'm going to be fighting this myself. ANNOUNCER: The build-up is over, and away we go in Super Bowl 43! PETER KEATING, Reporter, ESPN: The closer you look, the less this holds up. ANNOUNCER: You love 'em wild and woolly and you're seeing it now! Find journal titles available online and in print. The commissioner helped to promote a youth football safety initiative, the Heads Up program. The stakes for the NFL are obvious. JULIAN BAILES, M.D., Team Neurosurgeon, Steelers, 1988-97: Certainly, we knew that if you got hit on the head so many times, maybe you had a 20 percent chance of having dementia pugilistica if you were a former professional boxer. NARRATOR: They'd been college sweethearts. Morgan Stanley helps people, institutions and governments raise, manage and distribute the capital they need to achieve their goals. But from a neurological standpoint, you're going to have you're going to have some brain trauma. NARRATOR: Dr. Robert Cantu edited the journal's sports medicine section. warning Watch with PBS Documentaries Start your 7-day free trial . And in the last year-and-a-half to two years before he died, he couldn't even walk anymore. It looks like in the heart. We just have to be careful not to say that this causes that and be able to connect those dots without having more prospective analysis. MARK FAINARU-WADA: _Monday Night Football_ it's not just for football fans. It's not just on the pro level, it's on every level of football. 100%. A text book: The second edition of Psychology and Your Life by Robert S. Feldman written in 2013. ROGER GOODELL: [CBS "This Morning," September 4, 2013] There was no admission of guilt. He gave us verbal consent. NARRATOR: And if there was one iconic Steeler, it was number 52, "Iron Mike" Webster. NARRATOR: The league had its own doctor review Webster's case. But he doesn't know anything about football. But he literally slid it across the table in an envelope. STEVE FAINARU: The Disability Committee is part of the NFL. website to help you, but do not use citation generators. Dr. BENNET OMALU: I wish I never met Mike Webster. NARRATOR: Webster's favorite weapon was his head. LISA McHALE, Wife: Restlessness, irritability and discontent describe Tom to a T today, but no way is it anywhere near the man I had known and the man I had been married to for years. I don't know." If Will Smith's character in the upcoming movie "Concussion" seems familiar, it might be because you've already met the real Dr. Bennet Omalu in FRONTLINE's "League of Denial.". NARRATOR: Dr. Edward Westbrook examined him. And getting in that room with a bunch of males who already thought they knew all the answers more sexism. Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation. And it starts destroying the integrity of the brain cells. I just feel that, I guess, the more cases we get, the more we persevere, the more they hear, eventually, they'll change their mind. NARRATOR: And as the teams took the field just a few months later, in the fall of 2007, the league's definitive statement on brain injury was given to every single player in a pamphlet. MARK FAINARU-WADA, FRONTLINE/ESPN: There's going to be a meeting that the commissioner is holding with former players. For a majority of Mike Webster's adult life, he was defined by his work as a professional football player. Dr. HENRY FEUER: She was seeing only those that were in trouble, and we know that there are thousands roaming around that are not having problems. PLAYER: Set the tone! Two ESPN reporters co-wrote the film and a book%2C examining the NFL%27s past handling of concussions. And Omalu's response was, "Who's Mike Webster? You can't go against the NFL. MARK FAINARU-WADA: The NFL very directly worked not only to get the brain to NIH, but in this case, to keep it away from Omalu's group or McKee's group by speaking badly about them. Dr. ANN McKEE: I was shocked to find that in the brain of this 18-year-old, there were little tiny spots, little tiny areas in the frontal lobe that looked just like this disease. NARRATOR: It was now in writing. When you have force against force, you're going to have injuries. Aikman was taken to a local hospital. NARRATOR: Dr. McKee had examined thousands of brains, but the location of the damage from CTE was different. CHRIS NOWINSKI: There were thousands of reporters across the street and probably two dozen who were willing to walk across and learn about CTE. MARK LOVELL, Ph.D., Neuropsychologist: I look back on some of the papers, yeah, I think I could have done it differently. It was during that time that a brain arrived that would dramatically raise the stakes. If they went back into the same contest with a concussion, it didn't matter. Web Site Copyright 1995-2023 WGBH Educational Foundation. You know, he had veins all over his legs, varicose veins and stuff like that. NARRATOR: It was the commissioner himself who kept Perfetto out. JUNIOR SEAU: [NFL Films] A perfect hit is when you're faced up, coming one on one, and you hear him go, "Uh" just a little "Uh.". They'll squash you. NARRATOR: Webster was often unable able to sleep. Menu. Be sure to include a discussion of the research problem, questions, method, findings, and implications discussed by the authors. Produced by: Michael Kirk. I think the fault of the paper was, it was maybe too early to be making those statements based on a fairly small sample of players, which is the major criticism of the study which I think is a valid one. Watch the Trailer. APA style is used in the social sciences, education, engineering and business. COLIN WEBSTER: Maybe the saddest I ever heard him say was when someone saw my dad and, "Aren't you Mike Webster?" His body he had cellulitis. NARRATOR: Back in New York, with the pressure mounting, the commissioner decided to make some dramatic changes. pbs frontline special league of denial apa citation. I could answer this real easy at other times, but right now, I'm just tired. But what you should know now is your child could develop a brain injury as a result of playing football. His claim for disability was filed with the National Football League's retirement board. LISA McHALE: Eight months ago, I lost my best friend, my college sweetheart and my husband of 18 years. NARRATOR: Hall of Fame linebacker for the New York Giants, Harry Carson went to war with Mike Webster. Maybe there should be better evidence by now. Then a third time, he interrupted me, and I turned to him and I said, "OK, why don't you tell me what implications are?" October 8, 2013. LISA McHALE: He is now the sixth confirmed case of CTE among former NFL players. They should have known because the issue is so critical. How to cite "League of denial" by Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru APA citation. Maybe 10 minutes passed, and he looked at me with the same puzzled expression and asked the same sequence of questions. You know, as much as wrestling is performance, there's a very, very small margin of error. Dr. BENNET OMALU: So I was very demoralized, I remember that day I was. The number is relatively small. It was a new understanding that, "Hey, you know, this might be bigger than we think.". Soon he and his family would come to believe those hits to the head had taken a devastating toll. "Concussion Watch" tries to answer these questions by tracking every officially reported head injury in the NFL. ALAN SCHWARZ: They refused to listen to people who didn't share their opinions about the research, and it was very much, you know, putting a stake in the ground saying everybody else is wrong. You've got the very real question being asked of whether the nature of playing the sport exposes you to brain damage and lots of science that suggests that it can. I really think it shouldn't be published. He was he actually he broke down in tears in front of me a couple of times because he couldn't get his thoughts together and he couldn't keep them in order. Goodell had grown up in Washington, the son of a United States senator from New York. Dr. McKee had read Dr. Omalu's research, but she wanted to see for herself. December 15, Create an Annotated Bibliography from the 10 references used in your Reference List assignment. PAM WEBSTER: I think he was embarrassed. And then he'd lift his shoulders. My boyfriend's been shot! STEVE FAINARU: There's almost a Darwinian quality about the NFL. APA reference style is a style of citing sources used by the American Psychological Association.It is primarily used in the social sciences and includes guidelines for citing sources both within the text of a document and in the . I'm, like, "Wow! CORRESPONDENT: With early onset of Alzheimer's? NARRATOR: Casson had once joined Pellman in attacking Omalu's work. But the details of how they went about it, that's what's going to stay locked away. That's the equivalent of driving a car at 35 miles per hour into a brick wall 1,000 to 1,500 times per year. I said, "I think I do. They granted Webster monthly disability payments. ALAN SCHWARZ, The New York Times: Documents were passed to me at Smith and Wollensky's in Manhattan, in an envelope. ROBERT STERN, Ph.D., Neuropsychologist, BU CTE Center: Owen Thomas to me was a critical case. NARRATOR: Harry Carson has been studying the matter since he retired 25 years ago. ROGER GOODELL: The evidence is that our doctors are making excellent decisions. Let's go! The National Football League, a multibillion-dollar commercial juggernaut, presides over America's . PBS will premiere a Frontline documentary%2C League of Denial%2C on Tuesday night. ANN McKEE, M.D., Neuropathologist, BU CTE Center: We dissect and section his brain, do a whole series of microscopic slides, look at it with all sorts of different stains for different things, and then come to a conclusion about what the diagnosis is. pbs frontline special league of denial apa citationgarberiel battery charger manual 26th February 2023 / in what's happening in silsbee, tx today / by / in what's happening in silsbee, tx today / by NEWSCASTER: Tagliabue will be succeeded by Roger Goodell. JANE LEAVY: Nowinski, who is not a scientist, says, "There are people getting hit here. NARRATOR: In the 1970s, Webster anchored four Super Bowl championship teams. And a lawyer is not there to offer competitive athletic advice, either. NEWSCASTER: It is hard to find a former pro football player whose body hasn't paid a very high price. NARRATOR: Once one of Pittsburgh's greatest football heroes, Webster began living out of a pickup truck. APA Activity 2: Citing PracticeCreate a reference page by citing the following sources in correct APA format. This would be a perfect candidate for us to study and see if he had it. The league donated $30 million dollars to the NIH to study sports injuries, including joint disease, chronic pain and CTE. Subscribe with this See production, box office & company info, Self - University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Self - Neuropsychologist, Boston University, This documentary is better than what "Concussion" and Will Smith could ever think to create. Annoyed. We don't know the concussion history in many of these. And he said, "No, you can't attend. There was great doubt. He's just in every play. 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