Irv Muchnick has been through a lot in digging up information about head trauma, steroids, and other issues related to what he terms “the cocktail of death” in pro wrestling. However, the seemingly endless roadblocks has not stopped him from great fact-finding in an effort to make the issue of head injuries, in particular CTE transparent.
Muchnick has an exclusive find as posted today on his blog;
In his latest letter to me last year threatening to sue me for my reporting, World Wrestling Entertainment lawyer Jerry McDevitt pointed out that Dr. Bennet Omalu’s study of dead wrestler Chris Benoit’s brain was not published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal until 2010, and then only in “an obscure nursing journal.” See “New Threats From WWE Lawyer Jerry McDevitt,” December 17, 2010, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/new-threats-from-wwe-lawyer-jerry-mcdevitt/.
After wading through all difficulties he has found and praised Neurosurgery for their restructuring including changing editor-in-chief;
However, I understand that Oyesiku was named to replace Dr. Michael Apuzzo as editor of Neurosurgery with a mandate that included reversing the journal’s perception as a de facto NFL house organ for academic articles answering loaded questions, which in turn served the commercial interests of the league and its contract doctors and business partners. Apuzzo, a consultant for the New York Giants, had overseen the publication of a decade’s worth of controversial studies on aspects of brain trauma in sports – including the 2006 article on the Riddell helmet manufacturer’s new design, which was co-authored by the company’s chief engineer and by Pittsburgh Steelers team neurologist and imPACT software entrepreneur Dr. Joseph Maroon, and is now the focus of a Federal Trade Commission probe of Riddell’s allegedly misleading promotional claims.
Apparently Dr. Bennet Omalu’s third study of a professional football player (Mike Webster and Terry Long being the first two) about Andre Waters was NOT published in the journal. Muchnick opines that this was due to an “exile” of sorts because a third study could not be written off as coincidence. During the time when Omalu was not being published in Neurosurgery, for what ever reason, he published a study on Chris Benoit of WWE fame; this time is was published in the Journal of Forensic Nursing.
The be all end all of the EXCLUSIVE is this;
I am happy to report that the new regime of Neurosurgery lists Omalu on its masthead as an associate editor, Sports & Rehabilitation. The section editor is Dr. Julian Bailes, Omalu’s co-director of the West Virginia Brain Injury Research Institute.
In addition, I am told that Omalu has a piece upcoming in the March issue of Neurosurgery. The article will review the whole history, scientific and political, of his groundbreaking CTE work. Doctors and lay observers alike eagerly await it.
I am also eagerly awaiting the release of this study by Omalu, we will keep you apprised of the situation as it warrants. We would also like to thank Irv Muchnick for allowing us to share this information, and use it for what it is, INFORMATION.
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