The National Institutes of Health backed up the idea of the N.F.L agreeing to contribute tens of millions of dollars to concussion research as they saw this as an opportunity of reducing the permanent effects of head injuries on players. The N.F.L agreed to this decision back in 2012 and they agreed to have no control over how the funds were to be used. However, the N.F.L officials were overly corrupt and tried all means of hiring their own doctor according to a congressional committee which released its research on Monday. The N.F.L denied these accusations in a statement carried out by Democratic members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
The N.F.L has a long history of trying to mishandle concussion research which goes way back to the time when they first decided to follow up on crisis by using faulty information to come up with various studies. According to Dr. Richard Ellenbogen’s research in 2013 who proposed to carry out the research on how the funds were being used and later on petitioned to dishonor the findings of Dr. Stern who had initially being given credit on that work. Nothing much has changed over the last years, Dr. Elliot Pelliman who was the leader of the league’s concussion committee is still present though his work was dishonored since his study was suspicious and he never came out to support the permanent effects of head injuries on players.
Recent members of the committee include, Dr. Richard Ellenbogen who discredited the research findings of Dr. Robert Stern, who is a Boston neurologist. Others include Representative Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey who supervised the study and accused the N.F.L of trying to negatively influence research that they agreed to fund and then leave the rest to the research team. According to Mr. Pallone the disagreements between the N.F.L and the N.I.H arise due to the attempts made by the N.F.L to interfere with the research conducted on life-long effects of head injuries. ESPN were the original reporters of the results of the study, and also critiqued the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health for failing to adequately defend the relationship between N.I.H and the N.F.L.
Recent Comments