On March 24th, The New York Times published an article titled “In NFL, Deeply Flawed Concussion Research and Ties to Big Tobacco” in which the newspaper questioned a published report by the National Football League discussing the amount of concussions reported on NFL players.
The piece published by the American newspaper explained the investigation held by the times on an NFL concussion report between 1996 and 2001. Assuring the NFL knew about the link between football and degenerative brain disease.
In the article the NY Times explained the research made by the NFL for the last 13 years, according to the paper a database has been made in which football players who have suffered from brain concussions appear diagnosed by team physicians.
The report emitted by the NFL referred to a certain quantity of unidentified football players who had suffered from brain concussion. A small committee from the NFL studied the cases and tried the database.
The NY Times reported that more than 100 diagnosed concussions were omitted from the studies, some of these injuries included football stars like Steve Young and Troy Aikman.
The newspaper assured that NFL’S committee calculated rates on the players concussions with incomplete data and making the rates appear less frequent that they actually were.
“After the Times asked the league about the missing diagnosed cases officials acknowledged that the clubs were not required to submit their data and not every club did. That should have been made clearer, the league said in a statement, adding that the missing cases were not part of an attempt to alter or suppress the rate” States The New York Times in it’s published piece
After the Times published the piece, the NFL struck back with a statement in its communications feed. The League assured that the article published was contradictory, alleging that the database between the years of 1996 and 2001 was preliminary information and more research was needed.
The National Football League explained the funding they have made on independent researchers for this issue, the press release also explains in details every inconsistent fact published in the paper.
Both article and statements can be found in the NY Time’s online site and in the NFL communications site.
Source: New York Times