The NFL Is Backing Out Of Their "No Strings Attached" Donation For CTE Studies Over Objectivity Concerns

(ESPN) – The NFL, which spent years criticizing researchers who warned about the dangers of football-related head trauma, has backed out of one of the most ambitious studies yet on the relationship between football and brain disease, sources familiar with the project told Outside the Lines.

The seven-year, $16 million initiative was to be funded out of a $30 million research grant the NFL gave the National Institutes of Health in 2012. The NFL has said repeatedly that it has no control over how that money is spent, but the league balked at this study, sources said, because the NIH awarded the project to a group led by a prominent Boston University researcher who has been critical of the league.

When the NFL’s “unrestricted” $30 million gift was announced in 2012, the NIH said the money came “with no strings attached;” however, an NIH official clarified the gift terms two years later, telling Outside the Lines that, in fact, the league retained veto power over projects that it funds.

Sources told Outside the Lines that the league exercised that power when it learned that Robert Stern, a professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Boston University, would be the project’s lead researcher. The league, sources said, raised concerns about Stern’s objectivity, despite an exhaustive vetting process that included a “scientific merit review” and a separate evaluation by a dozen high-level experts assembled by the NIH.

Stern, the director of clinical research for Boston University’s Alzheimer’s Disease and CTE centers, has a complicated history with the league. He once said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell inherited a “cover-up” from his predecessor, Paul Tagliabue. In October 2014, he filed a 61-page declaration opposing the NFL’s settlement of a lawsuit in which thousands of former players accused the league of hiding the link between football and brain damage. Stern wrote that the settlement would deny compensation to many deserving players, including some of the most severely disabled.

Some neuroscientists believe the league uses its money and influence to reward researchers who focus primarily on issues such as safety, equipment and proper tackling.

“Up until now they have controlled every dollar that they have spent on this issue,” said Eric Nauman, a professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at Purdue University. Research — published without the NFL’s support — by Nauman and his colleague, Thomas Talavage, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and of biomedical engineering at Purdue, has shown that repetitive head trauma from football leads to dramatic changes in brain chemistry.

“There was no way they were going to just give that money to the NIH and say, ‘Do whatever you want,'” Nauman said.

Classic move from the NFL here. “Here is 30 million dollars, you can do whatever you want with it. Whoaaaaaa, hang on a second. You’re giving it to a guy who thinks the NFL covered up concussions because that’s exactly what we did? And he didn’t agree with the settlement that would deny deserving players money?  And the lead investigator’s name wasn’t Ted Wells? Well then no, change of plans, that money actually has a lot of strings attached. Sorry if that was unclear when we said it had no strings attached.”

I guess this is the problem when you’re used to controlling everything, though. When a commissioner has absolute power to hire whoever he wants and cut them a check to find the answer he wants. It’s a little more difficult to control the outcome of studies when you’re not opening the vault for Ted Wells to get the conclusion you need to be true, or get AEI to use flawed science in order to “prove” your hypothesis. Turns out that real scientists have principles and they can’t be purchased to deny the existence of CTE in living players.

But, don’t let this confuse you, the NFL still very much cares about player safety. The health of their employees is the number one concern at the league offices. Just so long as they’re told everyone is in perfect health and there’s nothing dangerous about the game of football and everyone is happy.

Update: The NFL says they didn’t pull any funding and the NIH decided the study wasn’t difficult enough as is, so they wanted to scrap together the sixteen million dollars instead of using the money they already have. Funny that it took the NFL 40 minutes to “correct” this story but almost a year later mum is still the word about Mort’s 11 of 12 deflated balls.