Highlighting Emails from the NFL's Concussion Doctors to the NIH

Doctors from the NFL's Head, Neck, and Spine Committee, led by Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, were very upset with the National Institute of Health's decision to award $16 million to fund a study by eternal thorn in the Shield Dr. Robert Stern at Boston University last year, but they've been at odds with the NIH almost from the beginning of their relationship. The NFL initially gifted $30 million to the NIH in 2012 and from the jump, Ellenbogen was firing off dramatic, woe-is-me emails to NIH leaders, including the director Dr. Walter Koroshetz. You can dive in deep to this relationship over here, but right now we're just going to highlight some of the best of these emails.

On December 3, 2012, Ellenbogen received an email with details of a CTE workshop that he was apparently unaware was being planned. This triggered a series of messages that eventually ended in a long screed from Ellenbogen to Koreshetz and program director Dr. Ramona Hicks. Ellenbogen takes a stab at a BU study—we'll get to that in a second—because of a lack of transparency, while also imploring both to understand that he and his group have no conflict of interest despite their ties to the NFL.

I do hope you read that whole blurb because it's a marvel of self-professed altruism and a not-so-subtle reminder that the NIH is biting the hand that fed it. After all that, Ellenbogen writes, without a hint of irony, "There is no COI [conflict of interest]." We got you all this money, and I think it's messed up you won't do what I want you to do, especially because I have no conflict of interest. Ellenbogen then complains that he has been derided by the media for his attempts to discredit the critical BU study and engages in some rhetorical self-pity, reflecting that "apparently, no good deed goes unpunished."

After firing off that email, Ellenbogen wrote back to his boys and took some shots at the NFL's previous quack, Dr. Elliot Pellman, whom he blames for the whole mess.

After all those nice things Ellenbogen said about his friend and colleague Walter Koreshetz, he wants him to get canned.

Ellenbogen was likely stewing because a day earlier, NFL PR Man Brian McCarthy sent him a report from Outside the Lines detailing that Boston University study, in which 28 new cases of CTE were discovered in former football players. It's hard to tell whether Ellenbogen is more pissed about the study or the fact that Chris Nowinski, a former WWE wrestler and a concussion advocate working with BU, took a gentle jab at Ellenbogen for his preposterous safer-to-play-football-than-ride-a-bike nonsense that Roger Goodell has parroted. Ellenbogen forwarded the email to several of his colleagues with a brief note:

"This is what we are up against…heathen…personal attack." So dramatic! I wonder what was said?

"I think that's smoke and mirrors; I mean, it's night and day," Nowinski said. "If people having concussions riding a bike means that football is safe, it's a silly piece of evidence. I'm surprised a doctor would lower himself to that because he must know it's a silly argument, too."

Richard, welcome to the NFL! This is not a personal attack, this is a response to a fairly cynical quote you gave. The responses to Ellenbogen's email run the gamut from weirdo Braveheart–like appeals to fortitude—"we have to stay the course" and "very invigorating as we battle this"—to straight-up absurd, like this from Mitchel Berger, a literal brain surgeon.

OK, so some things you need to know: 1) I am not a doctor. 2) This is the dumbest thing I've ever read. Of course the prevalence of CTE is going to be lower in the general population than what is presented to Ann McKee at Boston University. That is actually the whole entire point. The brains of symptomatic dead football players are being sent to Dr. McKee and they are showing signs of CTE. We are trying establish and understand the link between football and CTE, and if football players keep displaying symptoms like violent mood swings, depression, suicidal thoughts and then Dr. McKee confirms that they have CTE after they die, that seems like an important thing to investigate. We need a general baseline to see how prevalent it truly is in football, but these studies come out every year and the numbers pile up. Claiming that this is all just confirmation bias and throwing up your hands at the press is not great science, either.