really a delight to be here who here I
just need to start a who here is heard
of Harvey Weinstein anybody anybody all
you’ve been reading about about the me2
movement about women not putting up with
idiot men well a case study you haven’t
heard about is football is the National
Football League perhaps the biggest
media big biggest entertainment company
most powerful entertainment company
dominated by men well I spent about five
and a half years at the New York Times
investigating the concussion crisis in
professional football and there was no
group of people more responsible for
everything you’ve read everything you’ve
seen all the rule changes than women and
I want to show you how that happened
first of all let’s just get the setting
in 2006 you had a situation where NFL
former players were experiencing
depression mild cognitive impairment
Alzheimer’s deterioration of the brain
three times rate of the national
population staring us right in the face
guys were being found with brain damage
commonly associated with boxers called
chronic traumatic encephalopathy but no
one was reading about it and the NFL had
done a study done thirteen studies you
hiring people to tell them what they
wanted to hear and saying everything’s
hunky-dory nothing to see here folks
well the problem is is that just because
or if the NFL says that everything’s
what happens on Sunday happens to kids
later in the week they don’t know about
the risks of concussions this is 2006
they thought it was just not a big deal
because in the NFL they said it wasn’t a
big deal you get a concussion go back in
the field no problem and he had
attitudes like this this young man in
Ohio who I talked to I couldn’t come out
if I had a concussion my team needed me
you have to keep playing
until you can’t this was the situation
in 2006 girls experienced concussions in
similar sports at higher rates than boys
and they take longer to recover this was
known in fact women had sort of always
taken a different approach to the issue
of football safety the mother and this
is Montclair New Jersey the mother of
nearly every one of the high school’s
team had visited the principal and
informed him that if he permitted the
game to be played and their sons were
injured they should hold him personally
responsible what year was this 1909
women have always taken a different
approach when there’s a big hit the men
say yes the women say no so in 2006
Sylvia Mackey the wife of hall-of-famer
John Mackey tight end for the Baltimore
Colts he was losing his mind couldn’t
take care of himself couldn’t recognize
the difference between coffee and soup
he was not in good shape she had watched
him deteriorate in 2006 she wrote a
letter pleading to the Commissioner of
the NFL at that time Paul Tagliabue
saying please help us
she said dementia is a slow
deteriorating ugly caregiver killing
degenerative brain destroying tragic
horror and he listened and he set up a
charity for NFL retirees who were
experiencing Alzheimer’s and similar
cognitive decline not that that had
anything to do with football
lying to but for the guys who had it
we’re gonna help take care of them give
eighty eight thousand dollars a year to
the families who need to take care of
these men
this was her reaction I just couldn’t
believe it I didn’t hear it is just
because I poured my heart I’ve told him
the truth and laid everything out on the
line the way I saw it it just didn’t
seem fair to me that is bigger and
better than winning any one individual
lawsuit okay so her approach she her
reaction was she was thankful okay every
woman in this in this montage here is
has a different approach as a different
reaction as different demands and that’s
fine she created this basically created
this charity for players she wasn’t in
it for to be vindictive or to get you
know any sort of lawsuit settlement now
at around this time Andre waters a
hard-hitting safety for the Philadelphia
Eagles blew his brains out and was found
to have the brain damage that we’re
talking about well he wasn’t found yet
what happened was his niece when her all
of her family said I don’t want his
brain examined I don’t want to know any
of this it’s too ghoulish we’re not
gonna have him be part of this great
experiment
she said no we have to send Andre uncle
hundrets brain in my family and I we
couldn’t understand why uncle Andre did
this we wanted some answers I wanted to
keep this from happening to other
families so here’s somebody who’s
looking out for unnamed Sheila unnamed
family’s family she didn’t even know she
needed to contribute his brain to
science and in fact and this was the
first article I ever did on this he was
found to have this brain damage and so
at that point in roughly June of 2007
there had been four NF retired NFL
players found to have this
by the way it was all for who had been
examined for the disease four out of
four you can’t examine until the players
dead okay it’s only post postmortem all
four guys who had been examined had the
brain damaged well pretty alarming well
not to the men commissioner roger
goodell
is top scientist on the committee a
couple of other folks who will hear from
in a minute well this is their approach
to the rising rates of dementia of
depression of cognitive impairment of
Alzheimer’s among their former employees
hey there are great many people who have
played football who do not appear to
have suffered these types of deficits
now that’s not a lie neither is smoking
tobacco people have smoked tobacco and
not developed cancer it’s the same
argument it’s a specious argument
designed to distract from the truth here
an NFL spokesman told me memory
disorders affect many people who never
played football or other sports well
yeah that’s not a lie but car crashes
affect many people who never drive drunk
that’s not the point so I had a
one-on-one interview with the
Commissioner never done anything like it
before and I’m dumping at his feet a
problem that I knew was going to be
immense for him trying to explain to him
what the numbers were saying and this is
he said he may have had a concussion
swimming these are this guy I was
talking about well here he is
here he is in the interview that I did
on swimming my brother had a concussion
swimming thank you very much he hit his
head outside the pool
come on Alan it does happen the
concussion happens in the variety of
different activities four out of four
four out of four and I appreciate your
being patient with me it’s more two for
work or had a four man above the age of
30 who played professional football
tonight have been diagnosed with brain
damage mostly associated with boxers are
you suggesting that all four men
I can’t sustain their damage in fields
other than football you’re gonna have to
talk to medical people okay now
so he says talk to and talk to our
medical people who have already
determined that everything’s fine here
is the head of the National Football
League Players Association at the time
the man most responsible for taking care
of the former members of his Union when
faced with data that showed there is a
problem this was his response to me I
just don’t believe it the men didn’t
just didn’t want to believe that this
American tradition Super Bowl Sunday
could be really harmful they just didn’t
want to believe it well the wife of a
former NFL player Elinor perfetto her
husband Ralph Wenzel was having similar
problems to John Mackey let’s listen so
Brown what do you remember about playing
football all right I think we’re done
with that
Elinor perfetto made it a cause to
challenge the Commissioner of the
National Football League to show up at a
players only meeting and say my husband
can’t attend how in the world can I help
him if I can’t attend it was only men
only the former players who are all men
she confronted him at the meeting and he
walked right in and she listened from
outside why was she not allowed in Harry
Carson former linebacker for the Giants
said men are men and they’ll look at
that woman and will not say everything
they want to say in the manner they want
to say it okay Elinor for pharaoh’s
response I don’t care if the
Commissioner of the NFL is mad at me and
so when data started coming up and we at
the New York Times we’re making such a
fuss
we were the lone wolves nobody else was
paying really paying much attention
about it and because I understood the
data
I kept forcing discussion about this
stuff I knew that those four ultimately
five ultimately six guys I knew because
I had taken probability classes that
that was significant it wasn’t just four
or five guys it was significant and the
everything landed in Congress when the
data we were talking about finally got
codified and here’s Eleanor perfetto
testifying the NFL must stop its denial
of the relationship between brain trauma
and brain disease and become a proactive
leader that it should be the evidence is
there the denial is disrespectful of the
players and the families that are
suffering and it endangers current
players and children my husband was
lucky in one way he has a wife who is
educated who works in health care she’s
the one who filled out all the forms she
has a good job with a company that
offers excellent health care benefits
and she also happens to be one very
pushy broad
one very pushy broad that was the line
of the thing because she kept pushing
she wasn’t as you know thankful she
wasn’t subtle about it she just plowed
ahead but the problem was the NFL still
kept denying that these guys were in
fact being diagnosed properly with this
brain disease and the woman who did or
the person who did most of this
diagnosing was Ann McKie at Boston
University
okay now was she somebody who wanted to
hurt football no none of these women
wanted football to be gone they just
wanted it to be less stupid and reckless
anyway
she she was a football fan like everyone
she was I used to play football in the
summers I remember being told I should
have been a boy well she grew up to be
one of the primary neuro pathologists in
the country and she was finding the
brain damage that we’ve all been talking
about she was the one finding it in the
brains and frankly being discredited by
the men who said oh you know she is
publishing in the press you know she
might not be right we need to get this
all peer-reviewed and everything well
she was invited to a meeting at the NFL
the NFL it was a publicity stunt they
wanted to show that this person who is
making us very mad we’re gonna include
her in the discussion well she went and
I don’t want to get into sexism too much
but sexism plays a big role when you’re
a doctor of my age who’s come up in the
ranks with a lot of male doctors that
sex is part of my life and getting in
that room with a bunch of males who
already thought they knew they need all
the answers more sexism I mean you know
it was like oh the girl talked now we
can get back into some serious business
but she plowed ahead and kept
appropriately and and scientifically
showing that yes this is a problem and
ultimately data from the NFL of all
places which was just delicious
showed that player
younger retirees were experiencing
dementia and cognitive decline nineteen
times that of the national population
among players 50 and above it was about
five times okay and that’s what blew
everything open it wasn’t just anecdotes
anymore it wasn’t just outside studies
that the NFL could could discredit this
is when started everything started to
blow open in October of 2009 and I’m
doing stories every single day from
different angles and the NFL hey there
are thousands of retired players who
don’t have memory problems they’re still
saying that what I take from this report
is there’s a need for further studies
it’s like thanks a lot so in the
congressional hearing who did the most
homework who was Linda Sanchez from
California
there were congressmen who are like this
will be the end of football as we know
it we can’t you know pursue this and oh
the New York Times misreported on the
study she did her homework and she used
the fact that she was a woman to her
advantage there’s a sense of what is she
doing there she doesn’t belong people
underestimate you and it makes you very
powerful and the NFL is so male and
macho and testosterone dominated I don’t
think they figured that women were going
to be a force to be reckoned with in
this thing and they’re finding out the
hard way let’s watch how she did it
facing the Commissioner head-on the NFL
sort of has this kind of blanket denial
or minimizing of the fact that there may
be this you know link and it sort of
reminds me of the tobacco companies
high school and college football players
be better off if instead of trying to
minimize this issue the leak took the
opposite perspective and said look even
if there is a risk however miniscule
that there may be this link we really
need to jump on top of it and make kids
and parents aware of this well
congresswoman I do believe that we have
embraced the research the medical study
of this issue as you point out you’re
talking about one study and that’s
then FL study you’re not talking about
the independent studies that have been
conducted by other researchers am I
correct in stating that I’m not sure
your question later on in that cut in
that same hearing only one NFL executive
formal or current has ever spoken out
about the league’s handling of these
policies Oh woman former president of
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers her husband
excuse me her father passed on the you
know the head of the head of the team
now she had stopped being involved with
the team but she wanted to come to
Congress and give her perspective and
she was the only NFL executive to do it
the team doctor is hired by the coach
and paid by the front office this team
doctor is not a medical advocate for the
players this team doctors role is to get
that player back on the field even if
that means injecting the player on the
field this is inexcusable the team
doctor dresses as a coach on the
sidelines and he acts in many ways as a
coach on the sidelines this is in my
idea inhumane and I’ve watched it since
the early 70s and I will tell you that
it has not changed well finally the
articles we were doing and the data that
were coming out you know there was a lot
of change that took place the NFL
changed some of its rules finally people
talked about concussions differently the
NFL acknowledged finally that you know
it wasn’t just the New York Times being
a pain in the neck there are long-term
effects concussions really are dangerous
if mishandled and you know obviously
everyone started finding out about it it
made the national media there were
television shows that used the narrative
of brain damaged football players former
players you know and and so I just want
to wrap up with some of the effects that
these women have
had of course there were some men who
had effects of course there were but the
women were the ones who helped raise
public awareness of this issue they’ve
changed they’ve had state laws changed
protecting young athletes all over the
country NFL rules have been changed if
you saw the NFA AFC championship game
when Rob Gronkowski was knocked out he
was removed from the game and didn’t
come back and you could just see Bill
Belichick going and media coverage has
changed you don’t just see oh he got
dinged more research has been done and
the NFL has been discredited the men
were discredited all over the place by
women who said enough is enough thank
you [Applause]