[2006alum]

I thought the article in this week's New Yorker, "Exactly How Dangerous is Football?," captures the dilemma rather succinctly:

The body of evidence linking head trauma to C.T.E. is now damning. “It’s like smoking and cancer,” Bruce Miller, a neurologist and Alzheimer’s expert at the University of California, San Francisco, told me. “It’s as clear as day.” And yet the exact mechanisms through which repeated blows to the head result, decades later, in tau buildup and neurological symptoms, remain unknown. Not everyone exposed to repeated head trauma will develop long-term neurological problems; the danger within any one group of players seems to be distributed unevenly, in the same way that some lifelong smokers get lung cancer and others don’t. (None of the players studied by the Buffalo researchers had developed obvious symptoms of C.T.E.; on the other hand, many were still young and, because they were still alive, their brains couldn’t be examined for tau buildup.) It’s also unclear how many athletes, over all, are at risk. The prevalence of C.T.E. in the pro-football population is unknown—estimates vary, with some approximating two per cent minimums, and others fifteen—as is its prevalence in the population as a whole (people get hit in the head in other ways, too), although the general expectation is that it’s rare. There is even less clarity about C.T.E. risk among college, high-school, and young athletes.

Last year, Fisher-Price was forced to recall the Rock ’n Play Sleeper, a wildly popular collapsible crib in which babies lay at a slight incline. The incline, it turned out, was dangerous; if a baby’s head fell forward, or if she rolled to the side or onto her stomach, her airway could become blocked. At least thirty-two infants had died in the Rock ’n Play since 2011. The decision to recall the sleeper was consequential—nearly five million had been sold—but it was also uncomplicated. When parents buy a sleeper, they expect it to be absolutely safe. There is no such thing as an acceptably risky crib.

High-impact sports occupy a different location in the landscape of risk. Their hazards are part of their attraction. We’ve come to realize that football is more dangerous than we thought—and yet we always thought it was dangerous. Players, coaches, and parents must now ask themselves a series of difficult questions with amorphous answers. How much risk is too much? How much scientific knowledge is enough, when the details are still emerging? How much do you have to know before making up your mind?

[2006alum]

I thought the article in this week's New Yorker, "Exactly How Dangerous is Football?," captures the dilemma rather succinctly:

The body of evidence linking head trauma to C.T.E. is now damning. “It’s like smoking and cancer,” Bruce Miller, a neurologist and Alzheimer’s expert at the University of California, San Francisco, told me. “It’s as clear as day.” And yet the exact mechanisms through which repeated blows to the head result, decades later, in tau buildup and neurological symptoms, remain unknown. Not everyone exposed to repeated head trauma will develop long-term neurological problems; the danger within any one group of players seems to be distributed unevenly, in the same way that some lifelong smokers get lung cancer and others don’t. (None of the players studied by the Buffalo researchers had developed obvious symptoms of C.T.E.; on the other hand, many were still young and, because they were still alive, their brains couldn’t be examined for tau buildup.) It’s also unclear how many athletes, over all, are at risk. The prevalence of C.T.E. in the pro-football population is unknown—estimates vary, with some approximating two per cent minimums, and others fifteen—as is its prevalence in the population as a whole (people get hit in the head in other ways, too), although the general expectation is that it’s rare. There is even less clarity about C.T.E. risk among college, high-school, and young athletes.

Last year, Fisher-Price was forced to recall the Rock ’n Play Sleeper, a wildly popular collapsible crib in which babies lay at a slight incline. The incline, it turned out, was dangerous; if a baby’s head fell forward, or if she rolled to the side or onto her stomach, her airway could become blocked. At least thirty-two infants had died in the Rock ’n Play since 2011. The decision to recall the sleeper was consequential—nearly five million had been sold—but it was also uncomplicated. When parents buy a sleeper, they expect it to be absolutely safe. There is no such thing as an acceptably risky crib.

High-impact sports occupy a different location in the landscape of risk. Their hazards are part of their attraction. We’ve come to realize that football is more dangerous than we thought—and yet we always thought it was dangerous. Players, coaches, and parents must now ask themselves a series of difficult questions with amorphous answers. How much risk is too much? How much scientific knowledge is enough, when the details are still emerging? How much do you have to know before making up your mind?