The San Francisco Bay Area, which I represent in Congress, is proud to host football fans from around the country for Super Bowl 50. But the game may be harder to enjoy this year for those who, like me, have seen Concussion. I won’t be able to forget that with every tackle, block and hit, players are exposed to a potentially debilitating disease.
The movie stars Will Smith as Bennet Omalu, a doctor who found that repeated blows to the head cause a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is irreparably damaging and even killing our athletes. Omalu’s research has set off alarms. We now know that CTE could harm not only pro athletes but also children who play competitive sports as well as our soldiers, who suffer from alarming rates of traumatic brain injuries.
Unfortunately, the terrible truth is that the NFL is still downplaying and in some respects undermining Omalu’s discoveries as it rakes in historic profits.
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