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New Zealand PM to address media shortly
New Zealand’s prime minister Chris Hipkins is set to address media at 10:15am New Zealand time about the shooting in Aukland this morning.
Continue reading...US expert tells long-delayed hearing into death of former Richmond player that NFL has achieved ‘dramatic’ reduction in head impacts
The AFL should consider following the lead of American football in “severely limiting full contact practices” to “dramatically reduce the risk” of players developing neurodegenerative disease, a US expert has told the first hearing of the inquest into the death of the late AFL player, Shane Tuck.
Tuck played 173 games for Richmond Football Club between 2004 and 2013, and later had a brief boxing career, from 2015 to 2017. He killed himself at the age of 38 in July 2020. After his death, he was found by the Australian Sports Brain Bank to have suffered from severe chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the debilitating degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head trauma and increasingly linked to long-term exposure to contact sports. It can only be definitively diagnosed after death.
Continue reading...Anita Frawley tells parliamentary inquiry the AFL was ‘fantastic’ in caring for her family but needs to do more for other players
The AFL is not doing enough to manage concussion and the long-term effects of brain trauma, Anita Frawley, the widow of AFL player and coach Danny Frawley, has told a parliamentary inquiry.
Giving evidence at a hearing of the federal senate committee inquiry into concussions and repeated head trauma in contact sports, Frawley described the circumstances of her husband’s suicide in 2019, and the posthumous finding that he had suffered from stage two chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the debilitating neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated head trauma which is increasingly linked to long-term exposure to contact sports.
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Continue reading...The AFL has not provided a timeline or details on how it will care for injured former players despite pledging urgent action, the association claimed in a submission
The AFL Players’ Association claims it has been kept in the dark for more than six months about the league’s plans to review the clinical care of - and financial assistance for – past players who suffered long-term effects from concussion and other career-ending injuries on the field.
In a submission to the federal parliamentary inquiry into concussion in sport, the players’ association claimed that the AFL has so far failed to provide a timeline or details on what it plans to do to look after injured former players, despite pledging to take urgent action on the matter after its review into the work of its former concussion adviser, neurologist Paul McCrory.
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Continue reading...Judges commended the ‘exemplary’ work of the journalists who ‘helped to trigger further inquiries and an apology’ from the league
Three Guardian Australia journalists have won the Grant Hattam Quill award for investigative journalism at the Melbourne Press Club awards for their investigation into concussion and the AFL.
Melissa Davey, Stephanie Convery and Emma Kemp picked up the award for their work on “the gaping hole in sport’s concussion policies” with judges describing it as “exemplary investigative journalism”.
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Continue reading...The action, lodged in the Victorian supreme court against the AFL, alleges loss, pain and suffering to more than 60 former players
Former football players are seeking up to $1bn in compensation in a landmark class action lodged in Victoria against the AFL for the serious damage concussion has allegedly caused them.
The action, lodged by Margalit Injury Lawyers in the supreme court of Victoria, is on behalf of all professional AFL players who sustained concussion-related injuries through head strikes while playing or training between 1985 and 14 March this year.
Continue reading...Multiple concussions in a lifetime were shown to affect the ability to plan and pay attention, though research also underlined health benefits of playing sport
Experiencing multiple concussions may be linked to worse brain function in later life, suggests a study of nearly 16,000 people.
Among 15,764 people aged 50 to 90, those who reported three or more concussions had worse complex planning and attention scores on a range of cognitive tests.
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Continue reading...Lidia Thorpe says Labor and Coalition back hearings while ‘sports organisations need to be transparent about evidence that informs concussion policies’
A federal parliamentary committee will examine concussion and repeated head trauma in contact sports, with the Greens saying they have the support of Labor and the Coalition to establish the inquiry.
The push follows growing concern about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, the neurodegenerative disease associated with repeated head trauma and concussion that has been increasingly linked to contact and collision sports.
Continue reading...Another generation is at risk of developing fatal brain disease, says Dr Chris Nowinski. ‘Whether you’re hitting your child in the head or letting them get tackled, their brain can’t tell the difference’
A leading international concussion expert has said “anything Paul McCrory has touched” must be reviewed in the wake of plagiarism allegations against the Australian-based neurologist who has advised global sporting bodies on the effects of concussion.
American neuroscientist and chief executive of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, Dr Chris Nowinski, said the advice that McCrory gave to some sporting bodies that participants of collision-based sports are not necessarily at risk of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy was damaging and wrong. He accused McCrory of “sowing doubt” about the link between head impacts in sport and CTE in a way that has substantially damaged efforts to prevent another generation from developing the brain disease.
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Continue reading...British Journal of Sports Medicine says it is investigating a body of work published by McCrory, its former editor-in-chief
The British Journal of Sports Medicine says it is investigating a body of work published by its former editor-in-chief, neurologist Dr Paul McCrory, in light of “additional allegations of plagiarism” against the world-renowned concussion expert.
The peer-reviewed journal will also review the past four consensus statements published by the global Concussion in Sport Group (CISG), of which McCrory was the lead author, along with a sample of other papers on which he is the first or senior author.
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Continue reading...Analysis of 10 pieces by neurologist Dr Paul McCrory, who quit the Concussion in Sport Group, suggests he may have copied other work without proper attribution
A neurologist who resigned from a global sports concussion organisation amid allegations of plagiarism in a medical journal editorial has been accused of copying material in other articles without attribution.
Dr Paul McCrory, who in 2016 described concussion among NFL players as “overblown” and has advised the AFL on the issue, stood down as chair of Concussion in Sport Group (CISG) this week after the British Journal of Sports Medicine retracted the 2005 editorial, citing an “unlawful and indefensible breach of copyright” of the work of Prof Steve Haake.
Continue reading...Groundbreaking findings by Australian Sports Brain Bank reveal prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, including in younger players
Groundbreaking research into the long-term ramifications of concussion in sport has found chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brains of more than half of a cohort of donors, including three under the age of 35.
The Australian Sports Brain Bank on Monday reported its preliminary findings after examining the 21 brains posthumously donated by sportspeople since the centre’s inception in 2018.
Continue reading...Former footy player Paul Wheatley is serving a prison sentence – the culmination of a chain of events that could be traced back to numerous on-field head knocks
Paul Wheatley is often in bed by 7.30pm. There is little else to do once locked in his prison cell well before the sun’s light fades. So he reads a bit, then attempts to drift into unconsciousness.
It is the only sure way to push out the voice which follows him everywhere. The one most familiar and cherished in his world frantically repeating his name, each an anguished attempt to rouse him from a seizure before they were off the road and the tree appeared and it was too late.
Continue reading...Boxing must address the damage done in the ring and a new book by Tris Dixon lays out what’s left after the final bell rings
The writer, the fighter, the doctor and the widow all look down into the darkness and damage of boxing. They understand the previously untold story of brain trauma in the ring and, as they talk to me, their moving testimony underpins a shared belief that change has to come. There is a measured urgency to their words for they love the fighters and they want to offer their knowledge to help make this brutal sport a little safer.
Damage and death have always framed boxing. This harsh truth means that, despite the chaos outside the ring, boxing is shockingly real. It can maim and even kill but, in a strange paradox, boxing also makes most fighters feel more intensely alive than anything else.
Continue reading...Steve Thompson, who won the Rugby World Cup with England in 2003, has been diagnosed with early onset dementia and is joining a group of former players in a potentially landmark legal action for the sport.
The eight former players, who are all under the age of 45, are proposing to bring legal proceedings against World Rugby – the game’s governing body – the Rugby Football Union in England and the Welsh Rugby Union over what they claim is their failure to protect them from the risks caused by concussions.
Continue reading...In an interview broadcast on the biggest day in the NFL calendar, Donald Trump said he would have a 'hard time' letting his son Barron play American football.
The president made the statement during an interview set to be broadcast on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, hours before Super Bowl LIII kicks off in Atlanta.
Asked if he would be comfortable letting 12-year-old Barron play a sport that has been repeatedly linked to brain trauma injuries, he described it as a 'tough question'.
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