Fire Hydrant of Freedom

Effects of head trauma scaring Turley
Michael Silver

By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports 5 hours, 59 minutes ago


When Kyle Turley(notes) reflects on the most significant concussion of his nine-year NFL career, he has to work hard to suppress his laughter.

While playing for the St. Louis Rams in 2003, the ultraphysical tackle took a blow to the helmet and lost consciousness on the final play of the third quarter. He spent the rest of the game – which seemed, to him, like it lasted five minutes – on the sideline in a daze. He wanted to wave to his wife, Stacy, but was unable to remember the location of the luxury box where she was regularly stationed and eventually gave up. At game’s end he retreated to the locker room with his teammates, and then things got even blurrier.

“I went into the shower, and as the story was told to me later, I was sitting at my locker, butt-naked, when our owner [Georgia Frontiere] came in to congratulate us,” Turley says. “I don’t remember doing this, but everybody said I stood up and hugged her, totally naked, right there in the middle of the room.”

Yet any unintentional humor that stemmed from the incident is trivial given the long-term damage that Turley, a former NFL All-Pro, may have sustained from that and other instances of head-related trauma. More than a year and a half removed from his playing days, Turley is now experiencing symptoms which, he and his doctors fear, could point to a chilling prognosis.

Late last month Turley, with no apparent cause or warning, collapsed while listening to music at a club near his Nashville-area home and passed out for several seconds. Shortly thereafter, while battling vertigo, he began vomiting uncontrollably as Stacy rushed him to a nearby hospital. After being admitted to an emergency triage unit, a disoriented Turley was in and out of consciousness for the next several hours.

At one point, he recalls, “I was having a full-on seizure-type-thing, probably because my potassium levels were so low. I was on a table just flipping around like a fish; I was fully conscious and knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t speak. Realistically, if I hadn’t gone to the hospital, my kidneys could’ve shut down and I probably could have died.

“It was definitely the scariest experience of my life.”

Nearly four weeks later, what’s even scarier to Turley is the notion that his nightmare may have only just begun. Though doctors haven’t been able to give him the conclusive cause of the episode he experienced that night – or of the migraine headaches, dizzy spells and disorientation which have followed – the presumption is that he’s feeling the effects of the head-related trauma he endured during his playing career.

One expert even fears that Turley could be on the road to contracting Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative neurological condition that, researchers think, contributed greatly to the violent deaths of former NFL players Andre Waters and Justin Strzelczyk.

Now here’s perhaps the most disturbing information of all: Turley, relative to his peers, had no sense that he was a particularly likely candidate for such a daunting diagnosis.

“I never considered myself a guy that had a lot of head injuries,” Turley says. “But the doctors I’ve seen are very concerned about my past history, and when I look back on some of what I experienced, it makes me angry. Guys are going crazy, and my wife and I just had a baby boy. I don’t want that to happen to me.”

Turley, who believes he was given inadequate medical care during his career by the three teams for which he played, plans to contact a lawyer about the possibility of suing the NFL. “We could be talking about a class-action suit,” he says.

Turley’s concern comes at a time when awareness about brain injuries finally seems to be gaining traction among NFL players, team physicians and league and NFL Players Association officials. A league-sponsored players’ health and safety summit on mild traumatic brain injury was held in Chicago in 2007, followed by another concussion-specific conference at the league’s New York City headquarters this past May.

Among the promising developments: a move toward uniform terminology and testing policies among team medical personnel; enhanced helmet technology; recent rule changes regarding helmet-to-helmet and other dangerous hits, and the elimination of the kickoff wedge; a “whistle-blower” hotline for players to report unsatisfactorily addressed head injuries; and an apparent push by newly elected NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith to make player-safety issues more of a priority than they were under predecessor Gene Upshaw.

“ ‘Passionate’ doesn’t begin to describe how De Smith feels about the medical issues,” says Dr. Thom Mayer, who has been the union’s medical director since 2001. “He is possessed. To him, they are non-negotiable. He has suggested that I attend the [negotiation sessions for the new collective bargaining agreement] and I intend to be there at the table.”

Still, says Arizona Cardinals receiver and special-teams ace Sean Morey(notes), a member of the NFLPA Player Safety and Welfare committee, the current landscape is far from ideal. For one thing, players aren’t educated enough about the long-term safety issues associated with concussions.

“In my experience, 50 percent of players’ concussions go unreported, and that’s something we’ve got to change,” says Morey, one of three current players (along with Seattle Seahawks middle linebacker Lofa Tatupu(notes) and Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk(notes)) who announced earlier this week they’d agreed to donate their brains after death to a Boston University medical-school program that studies severe postconcussion ailments. “If players understood the risks more clearly – the effects of cumulative concussions or of suffering repetitive head trauma over the course of a career – I believe they’d be a lot more willing to let the trainers and doctors do their jobs.”

One major problem, as Turley, Morey and others readily admit, is that there are a lot of forces working against increased diligence on the part of players. For one thing, because NFL employment is such a tenuous proposition for many, most non-stars fear that they’ll be replaced if unduly sidelined. It’s also true that most players are highly competitive souls who pride themselves on toughness and try to plow through all but the most debilitating injuries.

“Professional players naturally want to play,” Morey says. “We want to keep our jobs, we have loyalty to our coaches and teammates, and we desperately want to win. Typically, when we get a concussion, our first reaction is to avoid the trainer at all costs. That’s just our mentality, our culture.”

For that reason, many minor concussions are routinely dismissed as “dings” by the afflicted party, with no sense of the potential for long-term consequences. “I think most of us have no idea how many concussions we’ve really had,” says New Orleans Saints linebacker Scott Fujita(notes). “In my experience, when you’re evaluated on the sidelines, as long as you can see how many fingers the doctor is holding up and you’re willing to play, you’ll play.”

In Turley’s case, it rarely came to that. Aside from the serious concussion he suffered in St. Louis, he says the other cases of head trauma he experienced in the NFL “were ‘dings’ where I’d get cross-eyed and not see straight for a whole series. … I’d see three guys for every real one, and I’d say, ‘[Expletive] it, I’m gonna hit the guy in the middle.’ That happened to me maybe two or three times every season.”

Given that Turley experienced vertigo as early on as his college days at San Diego State – a condition doctors have recently told him is treatable – he says the treatment he received from team medical personnel was cavalier and not viewed from a long-term health perspective. (Turley played for three franchises: the Rams, Saints and Kansas City Chiefs. All three teams denied requests by Y! Sports to speak to doctors and trainers who evaluated him.)

In New Orleans, Turley says, “I got out of bed one day and ran into a wall. My wife had to drive me to practice, and when I got there and told them what was up, all they did was put me in a room, put the lights out and say, ‘Lay down and go to sleep.’ I was puking all over the place, in and out of consciousness – I probably could have died. At the end of the day, they called my wife and had her pick me up, and that was it.

“I had some serious episodes like that, and never did they tell me to see this specialist or get these tests or figure out if it could be treated. Now I see that vertigo is a big problem with retired players, and it [expletive] me off.”

After his severe concussion (and unclothed encounter with the now-deceased Frontiere) in St. Louis, Turley says, “They put me in a room, and they were gonna let me go home. I was walking out of the dome with my wife, and we ran into [the Green Bay Packers’] Joe Johnson, who’d been my teammate in New Orleans. He could tell I wasn’t right and told Stacy, ‘Man, he’s [expletive] up.’ She said, ‘I know. I need some help.’ Eventually she found someone and had to force them to take me to the hospital, and they kept me overnight.

“The next week, my head still wasn’t right but they let me play in that game against Pittsburgh. I was like, ‘[Expletive] it, I’ll play.’ But I wish I hadn’t.”

Turley, who finished his career with the Chiefs in ’07, remembers sitting in a cold tub after a game at Arrowhead Stadium with teammate Richie Scanlon, a special-teams player and linebacker.

“He came in and had a broken nose that was cracked all the way across,” Turley recalls. “All of a sudden, in 50-degree water, he passes out. I went and told the trainers and doctors and they said, ‘He’s all right.’ I said, ‘No, he’s not. If you guys let this guy go home right now, I’m gonna file a report against you for negligence.’ He ended up in the hospital, and they kept him for a couple of days.”

Under the whistle-blower system now in place, Turley (or any team employee) could have called an 800 number to report Scanlon’s situation to the league and NFLPA without fear of retribution from his employer. Yet Turley believes there is a larger issue at cross-purposes with player safety.

“The problem is, the team physicians are employees of the club,” Turley says. “They have the team’s best interests at heart, and that’s having your best players on the field, regardless of whether that’s in the best interests of the player. So even if you’re in Disneyland in your head, if you can play semi-effectively they still want you out there. There’s a complete [expletive] bias.”

Turley says that the NFLPA, as it negotiates a new collective bargaining agreement with the league, should push for union-employed doctors on the sidelines.

“Perhaps that could work in an ideal world,” says Dr. Gary Solomon, a Nashville-based neuropsychologist who is a Titans team physician (and who has recently evaluated Turley, which he won’t discuss). “But that’s not where we live.”

Adds Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard football player and professional wrestler who is the co-director of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy: “That system would be scrapped the second Tom Brady(notes) was yanked in the fourth quarter of a close game. But it is a problem – players tell us all the time, ‘Doctors are more worried about keeping their jobs than about our health,’ and some of the more ethical team doctors have been fired in years past. There’s no easy answer to this, but it should start with having a highly trained neurologist on the sidelines.”

Solomon, who also serves as a team physician for the National Hockey League’s Nashville Predators, says another problem is the lack of a uniform system for evaluating brain injuries.

“The methods of evaluating concussions are as varied as the number of trainers and physicians,” Solomon says.

The issue was addressed at the health and player safety conference in Chicago, attended by team doctors and trainers, league-office personnel, NFLPA officials and leading neurologists. From that point forward, the league mandated baseline testing for all players – providing a “before” snapshot of cognitive abilities which could be compared to such tests after an incident – in an effort to ensure that those who sustained concussions were not prematurely cleared to return. (The NHL had instituted such a system a full decade earlier.)

The whistle-blower hotline was also established, though its impact does not seem to have been profound. Fujita said neither he nor any of his Saints teammates had ever heard of the program, and Mayer, the NFLPA’s health director, concedes: “We’ve not seen a lot of traffic there, quite frankly. This is a work in progress.”

For all the positive developments in recent years, it’s clear that more can be done.

“Based on our meeting in May, you have to say the NFL is more interested than they’ve been – but I wouldn’t say they’re appropriately interested,” Nowinski says. “We need more education and open discussion about this, and the NFL and NFLPA control the access to the players, so it’s really on them. The first reason I got involved in this was I thought it wasn’t right that people didn’t have a choice in their own future. It’s like with smoking: Telling people the consequences and giving them the choice is Step One.”

Morey speaks of recent enhancements in diagnostic technology and expresses the hope that they’ll soon be implemented. He also suggests reinstating a short-term injured-reserve list, this time specifically for head-trauma victims, as an incentive for teams to be conservative with players coming off concussions.

“If a player loses consciousness,” Morey says, “he would go on the 15-day IR, and the team could be given a roster exemption so they could sign another player at his position while he’s out.”

None of these potential improvements, of course, will do retired players such as Turley much good. As someone who has been heavily involved with Gridiron Greats, a nonprofit organization that aids needy ex-NFL players, Turley is well aware of the harrowing statistics retired players face: an obscenely high divorce rate; a similarly high likelihood of economic hardship; and the potential surfacing of anxiety, anger-management and other psychological issues.

All of this can be linked, at least on some level, to the aftereffects of concussion. Turley has already been treated for depression and anxiety, and he fears that “I might literally go crazy, like Andre Waters and Justin Strzelczyk did.”

Those were two of the six former NFL players who were diagnosed with CTE after their brains were studied posthumously at Boston University. An abnormal toxic “tau” protein was found in the brain tissue, a sign of brain degeneration similar to that found in Alzheimer’s patients. Waters, a former Eagles defensive back who three years ago committed suicide at age 44, was said to have the brain makeup of an 85-year-old man who was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

While other physicians have argued that CTE is multifactorial, suggesting that afflicted patients likely have a genetic predisposition for the condition and speculating about a possible link of steroid use, Nowinski says: “From a public-health perspective, that’s absolutely irrelevant. Even if trauma is but one of the factors, it needs to be addressed.”

Though Nowinski’s co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, Dr. Robert Cantu, has not examined Turley (who says, “I have never taken steroids”), Nowinski is familiar with the former player’s travails and believes there is cause for worry.

“I was concerned about Kyle even before this latest episode he had,” Nowinski says. “The symptoms he’d been having – regular headaches, depression – those two things alone are concerning, having seen that in some of the CTE guys and others who’ve suffered from postconcussion syndrome, as I have.”

In the aftermath of his ER visit in August, Turley felt as though he were recovering from the type of severe concussion he experienced in St. Louis six years ago. Early on, while attempting to close a set of double doors at his home, he had trouble recognizing which one to shut first in order to lock them.

“I had to sit there and test both doors multiple times,” he says, “because I couldn’t remember – even though I had done it unconsciously every night for the last two years.”

Driving, until recently, was a struggle – on more than one occasion Turley had to pull over on the side of the road because of dizziness. In recent days, however, he has become comfortable behind the wheel, and a sense of normalcy has returned. He’s back to playing music (his band, Turley, has a few gigs booked) and enjoying his and Stacy’s five-month-old son, Dean, who, says his proud father, “is gonna be a monster. His hands are as big as my buddy’s 2-year-old daughter’s hands. He’s trying to walk before he can crawl.”

Turley’s greatest fears – that he won’t be able to share in the joy of his son’s upbringing; that Stacy will be left to care for a cerebrally impaired husband – have made him as enraged as he famously was during his playing days. (The NFL once mandated that he take anger-management classes after he ripped the helmet off a New York Jets player during a nationally televised game.)

“This is [expletive],” Turley says. “I’m [expletive] as much as anything. They’re ruining guys’ lives, potentially. I mean, I barely drink, I don’t smoke – I’m a perfectly healthy person without any reason for this to be happening, and look at me. I literally could’ve died after I collapsed, and who knows when it might happen again?

“I’ll probably have to sue the NFL, but the reality is the NFLPA is as much to blame as anyone,” Turley says. “It’s just [expletive] criminal and it’s gonna come to a head.”

If so, that’ll be one helmet-to-helmet collision – a figurative one – that could actually help improve the overall health of current players.

I thought i'd start this thread on what our "allies" have been up to...


" British special forces train Libyan troops
AP

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press Writer – Sat Sep 12, 12:38 pm ET

LONDON – Some of Britain's most elite soldiers have been training Libyan forces in counterterrorism and surveillance for the past six months, a newspaper said Saturday.

The Daily Telegraph said a contingent of between four and 14 men from the Special Air Service, or SAS, were working with Col. Moammar Gadhafi's soldiers in Libya, a country once notorious for its support of terrorism.

The paper cited an unidentified SAS source as saying that the training was seen as part of the deal to release Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, whose return to Libya last month outraged Americans and raised questions over the nature of Britain's relationship with Gadhafi's authoritarian regime.

Britain's military refused to comment on the Telegraph's report. The Foreign Office said Britain had "ongoing cooperation with Libya in the field of defense," but refused to comment on the issue of special forces. It denied in a statement that the defense cooperation had anything to do with al-Megrahi's release.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other government officials have emphasized Libya's remarkable transformation from rogue state to Western ally and the need to keep Gadhafi on board since he renounced terrorism and dismantled his country's clandestine nuclear program in 2003.

But media reports have suggested that the prisoner exchange agreement that paved the way for al-Megrahi release was motivated in part by a desire to secure access to Libya's vast energy reserves. British Justice Secretary Jack Straw seemed to endorse that claim when he told the Telegraph last week that trade played "a very big part" in the negotiations over the prisoner deal.

Britain's thirst for Libya's oil and gas resources was again thrust into the spotlight earlier this month when it was reported that Brown had refused to lobby Gadhafi for compensation for the Britons killed and injured by Libyan-supplied plastic explosives used by the Irish Republican Army in the 1980s and '90s.

In a letter written last year to a survivor of one of the IRA bombings, then-junior Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell explained that Libya was now "a vital partner ... in guaranteeing a secure energy future for the U.K."

Britain's secretive SAS is among the world's best respected commando units. It was created during World War II for attacks behind Axis lines, but the group has since turned its attention to fighting terrorists. Among its best-known operations was the 1980 raid on the Iranian Embassy in London, which broke an Iraqi-backed siege. The SAS also played an active role in suppressing IRA rebels — many of whom were supplied with Libyan weapons and explosives.

Robin Horsfall, a former SAS soldier who participated in the Iranian Embassy siege and fought the IRA in Northern Ireland, said giving special forces training to the Libyans was putting lives at risk.

"People will die as a result of this decision," he told Sky News television, explaining that the Libyans "can learn how to defeat what we do."

He added that the military's refusal to talk about the report was telling.

"When they say 'no comment' we can read our own interpretation into that," he told the broadcaster."

Dispute over flag protest erupts in Wisc. village
AP
   
   
By ROBERT IMRIE, Associated Press Writer Robert Imrie, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 10, 2:44 pm ET

WAUSAU, Wis. – An American flag flown upside down as a protest in a northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it — an Iraq war veteran — claims the officers trespassed and stole his property.

A day after the parade, police returned the flag and the man's protest — over a liquor license — continued.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is considering legal action against the village of Crivitz for violating Vito Congine Jr.'s' First Amendment rights, Executive Director Chris Ahmuty said.

"It is not often that you see something this blatant," Ahmuty said.

In mid-June, Congine, 46, began flying the flag upside down — an accepted way to signal distress — outside the restaurant he wants to open in Crivitz, a village of about 1,000 people some 65 miles north of Green Bay.

He said his distress is likely bankruptcy because the village board refused to grant him a liquor license after he spent nearly $200,000 to buy and remodel a downtown building for an Italian supper club.

Congine's upside-down-flag represents distress to him; to others in town, it represents disrespect of the flag.

Hours before a Fourth of July parade, four police officers went to Congine's property and removed the flag under the advice of Marinette County District Attorney Allen Brey.

Neighbor Steven Klein watched in disbelief.

"I said, 'What are you doing?' Klein said. "They said, 'It is none of your business.'"

The next day, police returned the flag.

Brey declined comment Friday.

Marinette County Sheriff Jim Kanikula said it was not illegal to fly the flag upside down but people were upset and it was the Fourth of July.

"It is illegal to cause a disruption," he said.

The parade went on without any problems, Kanikula said.

Village President John Deschane, 60, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, said many people in town believe it's disrespectful to fly the flag upside down.

"If he wants to protest, let him protest but find a different way to do it," Deschane said.

Congine, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq in 2004, said he intends to keep flying the flag upside down.

"It is pretty bad when I go and fight a tyrannical government somewhere else," Congine said, "and then I come home to find it right here at my front door."

Boys with 'Warrior Gene' More Likely to Join Gangs
LiveScience.com

Boys who have a so-called "warrior gene" are more likely to join gangs and also more likely to be among the most violent members and to use weapons, a new study finds.

"While gangs typically have been regarded as a sociological phenomenon, our investigation shows that variants of a specific MAOA gene, known as a 'low-activity 3-repeat allele,' play a significant role," said biosocial criminologist Kevin M. Beaver of Florida State University.

In 2006, the controversial warrior gene was implicated in the violence of the indigenous Maori people in New Zealand, a claim that Maori leaders dismissed.

But it's no surprise that genes would be involved in aggression. Aggression is a primal emotion like many others, experts say, and like cooperation, it is part of human nature, something that's passed down genetically. And almost all mammals are aggressive in some way or another, said Craig Kennedy, professor of special education and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, whose research last year suggested that humans crave violence just like they do sex, food or drugs.

"Previous research has linked low-activity MAOA variants to a wide range of antisocial, even violent, behavior, but our study confirms that these variants can predict gang membership," says Beaver, the Florida State researcher. "Moreover, we found that variants of this gene could distinguish gang members who were markedly more likely to behave violently and use weapons from members who were less likely to do either."

The MAOA gene affects levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin that are related to mood and behavior, and those variants that are related to violence are hereditary, according to a statement from the university.

The new study examined DNA data and lifestyle information drawn from more than 2,500 respondents to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Beaver and colleagues from Florida State, Iowa State and Saint Louis universities will detail their findings in a forthcoming issue of the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry.

A separate study at Brown University from earlier this year found that individuals with the warrior gene display higher levels of aggression in response to provocation.

Over networked computers, 78 test subjects were asked to cause physical pain to an opponent they believed had taken money from them by administering varying amounts of hot sauce. While the results were not dramatic, low-activity MAOA subjects displayed slightly higher levels of aggression overall, the researchers said.

The Brown University results, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, support previous research suggesting that MAOA influences aggressive behavior, the scientists said. "

i wonder if this "warrior gene" is now being studied and/or synthesized by some egghead to be applied as  some sort of supersoldier serum
(shades of Capt. America!)

From NEWS10 San Diego:

Couple: County Trying To Stop Home Bible Studies
SAN DIEGO -- A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold Bible studies in their home, 10News reported.
Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.

Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"

The county employee notified the couple that the small Bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of County regulations, according to Broyles.

Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

"For churches and religious assemblies there's big parking concerns, there's environmental impact concerns when you have hundreds or thousands of people gathering. But this is a different situation, and we believe that the application of the religious assembly principles to this Bible study is certainly misplaced," said Broyles.

News of the case has rapidly spread across Internet blogs and has spurred various reactions.

Broyles said his clients have asked to stay anonymous until they give the county a demand letter that states by enforcing this regulation the county is violating their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.

Broyles also said this case has broader implications.

"If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly at home for poker night? What about people who meet for Tupperware parties? What about people who are meeting to watch baseball games on a regular basis and support the Chargers?" Broyles asked.

Broyles and his clients plan to give the County their demand letter this week.

If the County refuses to release the pastor and his wife from obtaining the permit, they will consider a lawsuit in federal court."

My whole beef about this whole thing is the way the city of San Diego is using intimidation on an otherwise innocent gathering. I don't like the idea of
the city or govt. being able to potentially curtail our rapidly diminishing right of lawful assembly by misapplying their powers like this. Have you had any interface
with your city concerning something similar like this? I know SOG met at PG Ed's backyard and from what i gather, the group had more than ten members. This
is, perhaps, more troubling to me because it was a bible study in a PRIVATE home, not in a park or street.
What ever happened to freedom of religion? In their mind it probably should read "freedom FROM religion.

cool article. ann as usual, articulated the issue well.
 one book that underline the clinton's misuse of public trust is  "derilection of duty". the authors name escapes me at the moment but it is by a former "football" holder who listed all the things bubba did when in office, one of which is actually losing the nuclear codes   ! think of it: lost code: no way to authorize counter strike. for a period of time the united states nuclear might was effectively neutralised. by it's own president. scary stuff. now hillary is sending out feelers for a posible run ?

god help us all

matinik