He is America’s concussion doctor, a pioneer in the fight against sports-related brain damage. Dr. Robert C. Cantu is on call amid football’s concussion crisis: congressional hearings, courthouses, NFL meetings, helmet safety panels, operating rooms, research labs, television studios, film documentaries.
In the 45 years since he became a neurosurgeon in Boston, Cantu has become a fixture on the front lines of a public health campaign that is reshaping the way football in America is played.
Yet for all his contributions, Cantu’s roots in the field have grown so tangled that his connections with parties on many sides of the concussion crisis have become emblematic of the conflicting interests in the football, helmet, medical, and scientific communities.
Cantu has worked for and against the NFL. He has been paid to help set helmet safety standards for the National Collegiate Athletic Association while accepting tens of thousands of dollars to submit testimony for players suing the NCAA over head injuries. And corporations that Cantu has served or promoted have contributed more than $1.3 million to entities he helped to create, including a research center, concussion foundation, and charitable endowment.
With football at a crossroads amid safety fears — at least six high school players died this year of brain injuries, an estimated 40,000 suffered head trauma, and the NFL agreed to pay $765 million to settle claims that more than 4,500 former players were exposed to brain damage — Cantu and the safety organization he helps guide, the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, are under fire for their perceived failure to better protect athletes from brain injuries that researchers have found to be endemic to the sport.
I say ban the game, but that get's into a whole bu$ine$$ I don't want to expound upon when I gotta go the playoff games later.
You wanna rile Americans up? Threaten their beer and football. Who gives a damn about mass-murdering wars and torture built upon lies, corporate looting of the economy, or the all-seeing electronic eye of the NSA?
No one alleges that Cantu has placed his personal financial interests above his cause. Rather, some critics and supporters said his overlapping connections may have hampered his ability to achieve his goals.
“I respect Bob,’’ said Kimberly Archie, a founder of Child Athlete Advocates for Justice. “He’s a brilliant man who knows what the issues are, but he’s not doing enough about them.’’
Cantu said in an interview that his decades-long effort to improve player safety has not been compromised by his complex web of relationships. He is alternately viewed as an esteemed physician who has aligned himself with competing interests in the concussion struggle and a headstrong crusader who is committed to accomplishing the most he can in the time he has left….
The same here, which is why I done with this one-day wonder and waste of time.
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Don't even know why I bothered with the article; must have been hit myself in the head too many times reading the Globe in the morning.
Of course, it's all in the player's best interest.
