Answers, not condolences: Inside the fight for AFL action on head trauma

As the AFL drags its heels on head trauma research, and launches yet another review of its safety protocols – the timeline for which is unclear – a startling new study of late NFL players’ brains has sent a shiver down the spines of Australian neuroscientists.

Published this week in medical journal The BMJ , the research shows that, at an absolute minimum, one in four of NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

About a quarter of players who died in that six years donated their brains to science. More than 90 per cent of those 235 brains were posthumously diagnosed with CTE, meaning that, at a minimum, 24.5 per cent of all players who died during that period had CTE. The number could be as high as 97.7 per cent.

The data presents a stark comparison to the roughly 1 per cent of the general population posthumously diagnosed with CTE in community brain bank studies.

The study also found a high rate of dementia among NFL players posthumously diagnosed with CTE, particularly those with more severe diagnoses.

The NFL did not respond to The Age’s request for comment, but a spokesperson told Reuters it was continuously striving to make the game of football safer, and had implemented several strategies to reduce concussions and head impacts. It also released a joint statement with the NFL Players Association outlining new sanctions for players found guilty of repeated on-field health and safety violations, like dangerous tackles.

Thousands of kilometres away, Australian neuroscientists have been taking note.

While the Boston Brain Bank started around two decades ago, the Australian Sports Brain Bank (ASBB) opened only in 2018. The bank’s Victorian manager Dr Alan Pearce said the US study provided the clearest picture yet of the prevalence of CTE among athletes exposed to repeated head knocks.

His team has analysed around 150 sportspeople’s brains, about half of which were found to have CTE, though Pearce said this was skewed by the fact that people suffering CTE-like symptoms were more likely to donate their brains.

Pearce said this dataset likely could have been much more complete by now if the AFL had been more cooperative. Instead, he said, the AFL has consistently hidden behind research gaps as an excuse for inaction, focusing brain health discussions on concussions, which are easier to prevent, and largely ignoring CTE, which is associated with repeated head knocks over an extended period.

“It’s a dirty word,” Pearce said.