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April 20th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda FRIDAY, April 20 (HealthDay News) — High school and youth
football players sustained 14 brain injuries with long-lasting damage in
2011 — the highest number in more than 25 years — and this is a “major
problem,” a new report claims.
The finding is based on an annual survey, conducted by the National
Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North
Carolina in Chapel Hill, which collects data on catastrophic football
injuries.
Although deaths from brain injuries among high school players have
decreased every decade, from 128 in the 1960s to 32 in the 2000s, brain
injuries with incomplete recovery reached the double digits in three of
the past four years.
“The line is going down with fatalities,” said study author Frederick
Mueller, director of the center and professor emeritus of exercise and
sports science at UNC. “I think that’s related to kids getting better
medical care on the field; they’re not dying, but they’re having permanent
brain damage.”
Meanwhile, spinal cord injuries with permanent damage have mostly
trended downward, with eight such injuries in 2011. There were 14 in 2008,
nine in 2009 and seven in 2010.
Overall, the rate of catastrophic injuries is very low at 0.19 injuries
per 100,000 players at all levels of the game. But that’s little comfort
to parents whose kids are injured, Mueller said.
The National Federation of State High School Associations, the National
Collegiate Athletic Association and the American Football Coaches
Association funded the survey and contributed data. The survey was
released this week.
There are currently 1.1 million football players at the high school
level in the United States, according to the survey.
Dr. William Meehan, director of the Sports Concussion Clinic at
Children’s Hospital Boston, said a closer look at the raw data might show
a little less cause for alarm.
“These are numbers, not incidence, and you can see as you go through
the years that it fluctuates,” Meehan said. “It’s not as if there’s some
mandatory reporting system and these athletes got followed over time. We
don’t have a denominator; we don’t know how many players there were, and
how many practices and how many games.”
Case studies in the report included spinal fractures and bleeding or
swelling in the brain, as well as one instance of a player recovering from
a concussion who was cleared to play and suffered a brain bleed and stroke
after a helmet-to-helmet collision.
In 1976, football organizations changed contact rules. Helmet-to-helmet
contact became illegal, as did “butt blocking” (hitting the front of a
player’s helmet), face tackling and intentional spearing (initiating
contact with the top of an opponent’s helmet). Later, the “intentional”
was removed and all spearing is now illegal.
Yet, Mueller said, “the problem is the way kids are playing: They’re
using the heads more. There was a reduction in the 1970s when the new
rules went into effect. Now it’s going back up.
Referees need to do a better job of enforcing safety rules, he said.
“You don’t see the flags being thrown after head-to-head contact. If you
get 15-yard penalties or ejection from the game, you’re going to see a
difference.”
Injury expert Meehan agreed with survey recommendations, such as better
player conditioning to strengthen the neck muscles. Along with reducing
cervical spine injury, that would lessen impact and slow the brain
“spinning” that occurs in hits that cause concussions, he noted.
Coaches need to drill players to block with their shoulders — not
their heads — and to tackle with their heads up, the report said.
High school concussion rules are being revised in many states: Players
showing any signs of concussion must be removed from the game immediately
and cannot return without being cleared by a health professional.
Mueller said the effect of stronger concussion rules remains to be
seen.
“Parents should really check with the school,” he said. “How is the
coach teaching fundamentals? Are emergency action plans in effect? In some
states, parents and players are required to attend meetings at the
beginning of the season to talk about concussion symptoms.”
Despite better awareness and added protections, football remains a
violent game, as illustrated by the National Football League’s current
“bounty” scandal involving some players receiving cash bonuses for
injuring opponents.
“That’s probably the worst thing that’s happened in football in a long
time,” Mueller said. “High school kids see professional players on TV
using their heads that way and announcers saying, ‘that’s a great hit.’
Kids think maybe that’s what they should be doing.”
More information
Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to learn
about concussions in sports.
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