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eBook/Digital Version available from:
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Score: 97 |
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| Tackle Football and Traumatic Brain Injuries: Law, Ethics, and Public Health |
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ISBN: 978-1-4214-5011-7,
241 pages,
Hard Cover
ISBN-10: 1-4214-5011-9 |
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| Copyright: |
2024 |
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| Edition: |
1st |
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| Author: |
Goldberg, Daniel S. |
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Specialties:
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Public Health
, Sports Medicine
, Medical Ethics |
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| Publisher: |
Johns Hopkins University Press |
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2715 North Charles Street |
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Baltimore, MD 21218 |
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UNITED STATES |
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P: 800-537-5487
F: [email protected] |
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http://www.press.jhu.edu |
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| List Price: |
$34.95 |
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| Google: |
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At A Glance
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American tackle football is an industry like any other. And like many industries, it sells a product that is dangerous to those who use it -- or, in this case, those who play it. In Tackle Football and Traumatic Brain Injuries, Daniel S. Goldberg explores the connections among traumatic brain injury, collision sports, and the industry's continuing efforts to manufacture doubt. Focusing especially on youths and adolescents -- the most vulnerable population that comprises over 99% of tackle football players in the US -- Goldberg addresses the ethical and social implications of their participation in tackle football. Goldberg discusses the true scope of the danger and the costs to society and individuals of caring for injured participants. If these risks were to become widespread public knowledge, the profitability and perhaps even the viability of American football would be at risk. As the tackle football industry has consistently worked to mask the health hazards involved in playing football, it has used a particular tool that has proved highly effective in achieving this subterfuge: the manufacture of doubt. Goldberg advocates for using public health laws as a tool for countering these efforts at obfuscation, and he outlines specific policy proposals intended to address the population health and ethical problems presented by tackle football. The book draws on public health ethics, public health law, and the histories of occupational and public health to assess the limits of parental choice to expose their children to risks of injury. Should kids play tackle football at all -- and who decides if they should? Goldberg offers practical answers to these critical legal, ethical, and social questions. Chris Nowinski, former Harvard football player and WWE wrestler, provides a timely and insider's perspective on these critical issues in the foreword.
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Reviewer:
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Naomi Scheinerman,
PhD
(The Ohio State University)
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Range
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Question
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Score
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| 1-10 |
Are the author's objectives met? |
10 |
| 1-10 |
Rate the worthiness of those objectives. |
10 |
| 1-5 |
Is this written at an appropriate level? |
5 |
| 1-5 |
Is there significant duplication? (1=significant, 5=insignificant) |
4 |
| 1-5 |
Are there significant omissions? (1=significant, 5=insignificant) |
4 |
| 1-5 |
Rate the authority of the authors. |
5 |
| 1-5 |
Are there sufficient illustrations? |
N/A |
| 1-5 |
Rate the pedagogic value of the illustrations. |
N/A |
| 1-5 |
Rate the print quality of the illustrations. |
N/A |
| 1-5 |
Are there sufficient references? |
5 |
| 1-5 |
Rate the currency of the references. |
5 |
| 1-5 |
Rate the pertinence of the references. |
5 |
| 1-5 |
Rate the helpfulness of the index. |
5 |
| 1-5 |
If important in this specialty, rate the physical appearance of the book |
N/A |
| 1-10 |
Is this a worthwhile contribution to the field? |
10 |
| 1-10 |
If this is a 2nd or later edition, is this new edition needed? |
N/A |
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Reviewer:
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Naomi Scheinerman,
PhD
(The Ohio State University)
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Description
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| This book is about the tactics that the National Football League used to avoid liability for suppressing evidence that tackle football was causing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in its players. The primary tactic the book refers to is the "Manufacture of Doubt" that features casting doubt on the merits of the empirical evidence, including by discrediting claims of causation (instead suggesting evidence is merely correlation), pointing out that the only brains that were analyzed were those that definitely had CTE, as opposed to other brains, and claiming that significant uncertainty remained. Further, the NFL cast doubt on whether football could even be a "regulated industry." |
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Purpose
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| The purpose of the book is to give an in-depth history of the tactics and philosophy of football regulation that created the ability of the NFL to discredit evidence and continue to expose its players to severe risk of injury and death. These objectives are indeed worthy, as the NFL comprises an extremely lucrative and powerful industry that recruits vulnerable groups and has its tendrils in youth leagues all over the country. The book makes a compelling case toward meeting these objectives because it presents significant evidence, including transcripts from board meetings and compares the tactics to other industries, such as tobacco and alcohol. |
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Audience
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| The book is intended for a wide audience. The primary specialty area is health law, with other areas in epidemiology and bioethics. The book meets all of these target audiences. The author is credible, having been advised by a leading expert in this field and worked as a scholar for some time. |
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Features
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| The book covers regulatory governance using a health law framework of a sports industry and the philosophical frameworks that powerful industry has used to deny evidence and protect their interests. The book concerns itself primarily with the tactics that the industry uses, which are the "Manufacture of Doubt" and its corollary conflicts of interest, and proof of causation, and precautionary principal responses to this. The book concludes with policy recommendations to alleviate these problems, featuring an altered regulatory framework. While others have written about the NFL and CTE, this book does one of the most comprehensive jobs of thoroughly analyzing the history of the NFL not only denying the existence of CTE, but the specific tactics of the Manufacture of Doubt that accomplish this. The best content area is the chapter on Manufacture of Doubt itself and how that operates within parallel industries that harm human health. The only minor shortcoming of the book is that it is a bit repetitive, but that also is in service of proving and reiterating its main thesis. |
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Assessment
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| The book is excellent, with extremely high quality of research, writing, and argumentation. Compared with other books in the field, such as those exposing other dark and sinister industries, it is a bit more academic and philosophical, as opposed to journalistic and expositional. Compared with other health law books, it is more accessible and translates complex ideas well for a broader audience. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in health law, regulation, bioethics, sports philosophy, and law generally. This book is not directly applicable to medical students or doctors as far as it is not as much about doctor-patient or medical industry ethics but rather focuses on a related field. |
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