GOP seeks review of claims that NFL influenced brain disease study

The inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services has been requested to look into claims that the NFL had sought to improperly influence a major study on football and its link to brain diseases, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Three months after Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), the ranking Democrat in the Energy and Commerce Committee, released a report suggesting the NFL had “inappropriately attempted to use its unrestricted gift as leverage to steer funding away from one of its critics,” Republican House members have requested an independent review.

ESPN offered the following specifics:

The controversy stems from a $30 million donation the NFL made to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2012. At the time, the league described the grant as “unrestricted,” and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell insisted that the league would let NIH make the decisions on how best to spend the money. The first $12 million of that funding was allocated in 2013 to two groups to study the defining characteristics of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the brain disease that has been found in dozens of deceased NFL players and that experts have linked to repetitive head trauma. However, Outside the Lines reported in December that the NFL had backed out of using most of the remaining funds on a $16 million study that had been awarded to Robert Stern, a prominent Boston University researcher.

In a Thursday statement, the NFL said it welcomed and would cooperate with an independent review.

“The NFL has never wavered in its commitment to advance the science and understanding of concussions and traumatic brain injuries. The league’s $30 million commitment to the FNIH/NIH was never in doubt and at no time-as FNIH has confirmed-did the NFL suggest that it would not fulfill that commitment to the last dollar,” the NFL said in a statement via the New York Daily News.

“While there were concerns regarding the NIH’s selection of research applicants, the NFL never suggested-nor considered-doing anything other than honoring that commitment in its entirety. It is unfortunate that the deployment of the remaining $16 million in research funds has been tied up in what the Committee’s letter calls a ‘distraction.'”

The call for a review comes only one day after the NFL announced a $100 million proposal aimed at additional concussion research and technologies that could lessen head trauma.