Essay On Dr Bennet Omalu

The NFL (National Football League) up until recent years has intentionally tried to cover up the long term effects of concussions on the brain. Is been hidden from the athletes at all levels youth through professional. Many player’s lives were changed and some lost as a result. Dr. Bennet Omalu was the first to shed light on the long term effects of multiple concussions on football players. Players like”NFL” Hall of Famer Mike Webster who suffered from dementia and passed away at the age of fifty. He became the first player to be diagnosed with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) by Dr. Omalu. As well as players at the youth level like Zackery Lystedt who suffered a concussion and was sent back into play he now suffers from permanent brain

Bennet Omalu is neuropathologist from Nigeria he became the first person to connect football head injuries to the degenerative brain disease known as CTE. He made this discovery in 2002, not until thirteen years later did the “NFL” settle a class action lawsuit to provide 5 million dollars to any retired players with medical conditions linked to repeated head trauma (Dobb and Herst). In those thirteen years he “NFL” did everything in their ability to discredit his research and ruin his reputation. After the “NFL” finally accepted his research as truthful Dr. Omalu referred to himself as “bruised and battered” after the years of attack on his credibility and research (Dobb and Herst). The leagues fear to change the game has made them willing to go to great lengths to hide and suppress the release of medical studies that provides a connection between football and brain

Omalu. Former player that in their playing days were known as “Heavy Hitter” were dropping like flies and CTE was linked to their untimely deaths. The first diagnosed case of CTE was in Mike Webster a Hall of Famer Center who after his career ended in 1990 was found to have Clinical depression and dementia. In his life after the league he faced long periods of homelessness and died at the age of 50 (Noonan). His autopsy by Dr. Omalu showed microscopic damage to the brain caused by repeated blunt force trauma over a long period of time. After his work was published nothing was done to make Football more safe for players at any level but parents still signed their kids up by the thousands. Parents of young football players often have an attitude of “it won’t be my kid”. This irrational justification of them putting their children into scientifically proven harmful situations is without the child’s knowledge of what they signed up for. This is where Dr.Omalu made a great suggestion "Our children are minors who have not reached the age of consent, wait for our children to grow up then provide them, as adults, with information on the risks involved and let them make their own decisions."(Dobb and