08-08-2017, 10:12 PM
(08-08-2017, 08:41 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: You keep saying "if there was enough damage". Breech already explained in post #24 that it takes a specific test on brain tissue to find abnormal protein deposition with a microscope.
It's not as simple as a 'seeing a bruise' to know there's some sort of injury that could be, or lead to, CTE.
Plus it is a degenerative condition that worsens with time. Arthritis is a fairly decent analogy. If you x-rayed most NFL players joints you would see little to no arthritis in young men in their 20s. But, in their 40s or 60s they most likely have a greater degree of degenerative changes compared to their peers who didn't play professional football. Plus an x-ray can't tell you if the degeneration is due to osteoarthritis vs. rheumatoid arthritis because it requires more specialized testing. Furthermore, yearly scans would increase their exposure to radiation and their chances of developing cancer as a result of the increased radiation without any demonstratable improvement in outcome (e.g. reducing the player's chance of developing CTE.)
Or Brad's the first person to think of scanning their brains.
We could put this to the Occam's Razor test. All the doctors and researchers never thought of scanning someone's brain for CTE until Brad. Or, they did think of it and brain scans aren't diagnostic for CTE.
Like how many licks to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop, I guess we'll never know.
