T.He says land with a slap. “There is no scientific evidence that multiple concussions during a sports career always result in permanent damage.” When is it time to do it?”.
He continues to say it’s a “neuromyth” that players should retire after sustaining multiple brain injuries. “The palpable fear behind this approach is that athletes who suffer repeated concussions will suffer a gradual cognitive decline similar to the so-called punch-drunk syndrome or chronic traumatic encephalopathy seen in boxers.” Based on the evidence, this fear is unfounded.”
“When to Retire After a Concussion?” must have been a comforting read for athletes and the medical personnel treating them—that is, unless they were already suffering from a problem that was dismissed as a myth. , considered one of the leading journals in sports medicine, said the issue was “confused” by “the media and the general press”, and that post-concussion syndrome was actually “extremely rare”. There was a major editorial claiming. in sports ”.
If anything, the doctor who advised the player to retire after suffering multiple concussions would be subject to a “forensic challenge” because it goes against science, the editorial explained.
Twenty years later, when it comes to science, it feels like reading a 1930s ad promoting tobacco for your health. The mere fact that the editorial was published in such a fashion was bad enough that its author, Dr. Paul McCrory, became the journal’s editor-in-chief and one of its most influential figures. Before you know it, it’s bad enough. in this field. McCrory was the lead author of his four concussion consensus papers. His work has shaped concussion policy across world sports for the past two decades.
This week, the British Journal of Sports Medicine retracted McCrory’s 2001 editorial and eight more articles. It attached another 38 “statements of concern”. “The scientific record relies on trust,” the publisher explained in a statement. [the British Medical Journal, publisher of the BJSM] Confidence in McCrory’s work, especially the articles he published as an author, has been lost. Five of his nine were retracted because they were partially plagiarized, and three of his were retracted because they were redundant publications. This leaves us with the ninth most interesting case. An editorial titled “When Should You Retire After a Concussion?”
The editorial argues that the concussion procedures used in many sports at the time were “arbitrary” and should be replaced. This was an argument he pursued by McCrory throughout the 2000s. He explored it in another seminal paper he co-authored in 2009, “A Prospective Study of Post-Concussion Outcomes After His Return to Playing Football”. His new six-day return-to-play program for concussed athletes.
This consensus was funded and endorsed by FIFA, the IOC and the IRB (now World Rugby). The IRB then rewrote its own concussion protocol to align with the return-to-play procedure set out in the Zurich Consensus. Until then, a rugby player with a concussion had been handed a three-week mandatory suspension. After the 2011 IRB medical conference, that was changed to a six-day gradual return to play.
Sounded good in theory – there was an idea that a possible three-week standdown would stop players from reporting concussions – but in practice, a six-day return to play could only be one weekend. It meant that the player could have a concussion.And if he passed the test, play the next game again. As Rob Nichol, who was on the IRB’s Concussion Working Group, explained at the time, the new procedure was “developed on the basis of a consensus document prepared by the world’s leading concussion experts in Zurich several years ago.” Other researchers, doctors and scientists were involved in the process, but McCrory was undoubtedly the key figure. He was working as a member of the IRB’s Rugby Injury Consensus Group at the time. And now, one of the editorials supporting his claims has been retracted.
As Dr. Stephen Casper and Dr. Adam Finkel explain in an essay published in BJSM this week, “When will you retire after a concussion?” Changed and weakened. This erroneous citation had the effect of undermining the arguments in favor of his three-week standdown period used by the rugby union at the time, and McCrory believed it needed to be replaced by a new version of his own. Enhanced 6-day protocol discussion.
Casper and Finkel said: In such cases, it would also mislead those sports organizations, their chief medical officers, and other key officials who have a duty of care to athletes serving within those organizations. .
World Rugby has finally changed its six-day return rule this summer. The company’s decision to switch to using it in 2011 and continue to use it for the past decade is one of the main arguments in lawsuits filed against them by players suffering from the effects of brain damage upon retirement. So BMJ isn’t the only one having to come to terms with his past relationship with McCrory.
The Concussion in Sport Group is working on a concussion consensus and will be doing its own calculations. And in the near future, so will World Rugby.
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