League of Denial

The authors examine the booming new business and competitive aspect of sports-related brain research. At this point in the NFL’s concussion crisis, the brains of four dead former players had been examined, and all four had CTE. In June of 2007, the brain of another dead athlete with a history of concussions was found to have CTE. The athlete was Chris Benoit, a professional wrestler who hanged himself after killing his wife and seven-year-old son. This story, too, would become national news, but it also led to a fissure in the group of dissenters that essentially split the group into two different sets of researchers and activists who would now be competing for access to brains. In a dispute seemingly over a revelation regarding access to Benoit’s brain, the relationship between Omalu and Nowinski dissolved, with Omalu, Bailes and Fitzsimmons splitting off to form the Brain Injury Research Institute based at West Virginia University. Nowinski and Cantu merged their Sports Legacy Institute with the Boston University School of Medicine to form the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, but they now needed another neuropathologist to replace Omalu.

Their new neuropathologist in Boston was