John Forzani's brain donation is laudable, but doctor he chose is a defendant in Bruce lawsuit
In the wake of former Calgary Stampeders player and owner John Forzani's passing last week, the CFL Alumni Association announced Tuesday that Forzani had elected to donate his brain to the Canadian Sports Concussion Project. The project, led by Dr. Charles Tator and hosted at Toronto Western Hospital's Krembil Neuroscience Center, has unquestionably made strides for concussion research, including finding chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE, the disease at the centre of concussion lawsuits in the U.S.) in several CFL players. However, many of the stories onForzani's donation merely restate the project's press release, and they don't mention that the centre and Tator himself are named prominently as defendants in Arland Bruce's ongoing concussion lawsuit.
Bruce's claims have not yet been proven or refuted in court, so merely being named in the lawsuit doesn't necessarily invalidate the centre's work, or mean that Forzani's donation of his brain to them is a bad move. It does illustrate how complicated the concussion research landscape has become, though, and it's certainly part of the story about the centre's overall work on concussions. Here's the key part of what the lawsuit had to say about Tator and the centre, from Part III of the suit (PDF), starting on page 39. The first page:
The second page:
And the third page:
Again, none of the above claims have been proven in court, and Tator has filed his own motion of defence that strongly contests Bruce's claims. (In fact, Tator contests a lot of this lawsuit, including some claims that appear rather uncontroversial, such as his authorship of the paper in question.) Bruce's claims of negligence are at the heart of this suit, though, and many of those are specifically made against Tator. Moreover, Bruce's claims of Tator and the Krembil Neuroscience Centre "downplaying and obfuscating the work of independent scientists and neurologists" are particularly troubling; those are along the lines of the comments from independent researchers about the current concussion crisis being "deliberately an instutitutional obfuscation." Bruce's stated position in the lawsuit is that Tator and the KNC's research is "promoting disinformation," specificially with the "Absence of CTE" article (which has come under fire before, considering that CTE was found in half of the brains examined in the study). Thus, further brain donations to this project are anything but uncontroversial.
The CFL Alumni Association's involvement here is also interesting. The association was the first to announce the news of Forzani's donation Tuesday, and they did so with an e-mailed press release that appeared to be from the centre, but listed both Tator and CFLAA executive director Leo Ezerins as contacts. Ezerins is also named as a defendant in the Bruce lawsuit, particularly for actions he and the CFLAA took around a Hamilton Spectator concussion study of former Tiger-Cats in 2011, which, according to the lawsuit, included influencing McMaster doctors not to interpret the results. Ezerins is also named as a member of the KNC research team both in that lawsuit and in the press release. Again, none of the allegations against him or the CFLAA have been proven in court, but they're worth mentioning under these circumstances.
Regardless of who it's been donated to, having Forzani's brain examined for CTE seems positive for concussion research overall. The centre's release includes former teammate and best friend Basil Bark saying Forzani had some notable concussions:
"John and I talked about brain donation three or four years ago," says Basil Bark, a former teammate, business partner and best friend of Forzani for 47 years. "I was experiencing some depression and memory loss and I discussed this with John. We looked more into what CTE is about and agreed that if this helps put the discussion further and helps anybody that is coming up in the ranks, we agreed that it is definitely worthwhile. I know John suffered a number of concussions while playing football. I remember one game John got hit hard and his helmet broke. We didn't have another one so he continued to play with it. He was glassy-eyed after the game and who knows what the effects were? I knew John for 47 years and everything seemed fine. But his brain should be examined."
Indeed it should, and the centre has examined many former CFLers, including Jay Roberts, Bobby Kuntz, Cookie Gilchrist, Tony Proudfoot and others. They've found and announced the presence of CTE in many of those brains, including Roberts', Kuntz's and Gilchrist's. Having Forzani's brain looked at increases the numbers of former CFL players' brains that have been examined, which is definitely a positive, and it's valuable to have a former lineman's brain considering the amounts of hits those guys take. Some of the most notable NFL CTE stories, including the one that started most of the U.S. concussion lawsuits on former Steelers' centre Mike Webster, have been about linemen, but few if any former CFL linemen have been examined so far. Forzani's brain will be a useful addition to the sample, and his decision to donate it to science is laudable. It just should also be mentioned that the group he donated it is currently being sued over their research and their involvement in the CFL's concussion policies.
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