The NFL is no longer contributing $30 million to a massive Boston University study that will examine the relationship between playing football and brain disease. According to the National Institute of Health, the league did not withdraw its offer.
ESPN’s Outside the Lines reported on Tuesday that the NFL backed out of the study after Robert Stern, a professor with a history of criticizing the NFL, was appointed lead researcher. The NFL quickly refuted the report and said the NIH made its own decisions about where funding would come from. The NIH later confirmed that via a statement.
“Through the Sports and Health Research Program (SHRP) — a partnership among the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Football League (NFL), and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) — multiple studies have been and will continue to be funded to examine traumatic brain injury in athletes,” the statement read, according to Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report. “The NFL funding commitment to SHRP remains intact. NFL was willing to contribute to the Boston University CTE study headed by Dr. Stern. NIH made the decision to fund this study in its entirety and to issue a Request for Applications (RFA) early next year to support an additional study on CTE using funds from SHRP, which will double the support for research in this area.”
What gives?
If the NFL truly withdrew its $30 million offer after insisting there would be “no strings attached,” it would be hard to believe that the NIH would defend the league publicly. Perhaps the NIH and the Boston University team decided that the results of the study would hold more weight if the NFL’s dollars weren’t used to fund it.
