League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth

Host: John Russell, MD In December 2005, the National Football League produced a scientific paper concluding that "professional football players do not sustain frequent repetive blows to the brain on a regular basis." That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: a chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players -- including some of the all-time greats -- to madness. In this conversation with Mark Fainaru-Wada, author of League of Denial, the NFL's apparent efforts to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage over a period of nearly two decades are put into the spotlight.