Speaker 1: So how did you come across doctor Rudy Castellani's involvement
Speaker 1: in the research for the NRL Well.
Speaker 2: Doctor Castellani has been one of the many American scientists
Speaker 2: who've been involved in research programs with the US National
Speaker 2: Football League.
Speaker 3: I'm delighted to be here. I think it's a tribute
Speaker 3: to the organizers that he'd be open minded enough to
Speaker 3: have me come and talk about some of these issues.
Speaker 3: I'm a neuropathologist and I've studied neuro de general diseases
Speaker 3: quite a lot over the years.
Speaker 2: With status, Castellani had been on my radar for a
Speaker 2: very long time as one of those sort of, if
Speaker 2: you like, contrarian scientists disputing the link between repetitive head
Speaker 2: injury and ct He gave a keynote speech at the
Speaker 2: World Rugby Concussion Conference in Amsterdam in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: and that's where he made his remarks that CTA was
Speaker 2: a hypothesis and that he was a denier of certain
Speaker 2: aspects of the research, and that this was a hypothesis
Speaker 2: that they were investigating.
Speaker 1: But just to be clear, the science is in on
Speaker 1: ct Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think there's no doubt about that. The US National
Speaker 2: Institute of Health issued a statement a couple of years
Speaker 2: back saying that ct was caused by repetitive head injury.
Speaker 2: This is the finding of the world's top scientists. The
Speaker 2: view of scientists associated with the NRL and the AFL
Speaker 2: around whether or not CT is caused by repetitive head injury.
Speaker 2: These are outlier views. These are fringe views, if you like,
Speaker 2: and that's what's been you know, we're witnessing in this space.
Speaker 1: From sports media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM.
Speaker 1: At a Senate committee last year, the NRL acknowledged a
Speaker 1: link between head injuries in contact sports and the neurodigenity
Speaker 1: ct But a core member of the NRL's Concussion Research
Speaker 1: Group is also one of the most outspoken critics of
Speaker 1: the link between repeated head injury and CTE, calling it
Speaker 1: an invented disease conjured at a sin air. So how
Speaker 1: does the NRL justify advancing a position that most scientists
Speaker 1: don't agree with and one are the other major codes
Speaker 1: like the AFL doing about the issue today? Journalists and
Speaker 1: contributed to the Saturday paper Wendy Carlisle on the brain
Speaker 1: epidemic killing X athletes and while the science is still
Speaker 1: being contested. It's Thursday, September five. When can you sketch
Speaker 1: it for us what CTE is and how our understanding
Speaker 1: of it has evolved over time.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Ct stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a form of a
Speaker 2: neurodegenerative disease, So that puts it in the same category
Speaker 2: as other kinds of dementias such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, ALS,
Speaker 2: and so on. So those are all dementias and under
Speaker 2: that sort of umbrella of neurodegenerative diseases those dementias sits CTE.
Speaker 2: What's different about CTE from the other dimensions is what
Speaker 2: causes it, and of the cases that have been identified
Speaker 2: around the world, the only known environmental cause of it
Speaker 2: is repetitive head injury. When scientists sort of dissect the brain,
Speaker 2: what they discover is that this disease appears in unique
Speaker 2: parts of the brain, and it occurs, you know, the
Speaker 2: lumpy bits of your brain on the outside. The disease
Speaker 2: tends to cluster at the base of those lumps in
Speaker 2: the sulsi, and it really reflects the physics of the hit.
Speaker 2: The force of the hit just shakes it the bottom
Speaker 2: of those bits of the ripley curvy bits of the brain,
Speaker 2: and so that's what they're starting to identify. Now you're
Speaker 2: hearing all about it in former footballers. But what scientists,
Speaker 2: and particularly these are scientists who are leading this research
Speaker 2: in the United States, are finding is that CT is
Speaker 2: not necessarily correlated with the number of concussions somebody's had.
Speaker 2: What it's correlated with is years of exposure to repetitive
Speaker 2: head injury. So these are the hits and the bumps
Speaker 2: that are routinely part of contact and collision sports.
Speaker 4: David wider longer is Brown Sky height Murphy started and
Speaker 4: charming for him and he's down.
Speaker 1: It might be out.
Speaker 2: What they're discovering is that thousands of these hits over
Speaker 2: time is what causes for some people this brain disease.
Speaker 1: So, Wendy, you've taken a closer look at the NRL,
Speaker 1: can you tell us about the first in our old
Speaker 1: player to be diagnosed?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was Steve Folks.
Speaker 5: Tragic news. The rugby league community left in shock after
Speaker 5: former high profile NRL player and coach Steve Fox passed
Speaker 5: away the Canby build off.
Speaker 2: He died in his late fifties by heart attack. He
Speaker 2: was exercising on his exercise bike at home. They could
Speaker 2: not get a proper diagnosis of why he died. They
Speaker 2: thought it was heart failure, but they couldn't really tell.
Speaker 5: Afternoon, the club has paid tribute to folks, saying his
Speaker 5: legacy as a bulldog and what he did for the
Speaker 5: club will never be forgotten and our hearts go out
Speaker 5: to his family and friends at this difficult time coming
Speaker 5: up shortly, and his family had been talking about Steve
Speaker 5: having you know, memory problems. He kept reintroducing family friends
Speaker 5: to each other and it's started to become a little
Speaker 5: bit of a talking point in the family. So his
Speaker 5: brain was sent to Michael Buckland at the Australian Sports
Speaker 5: Brain Bank because Michael Buckland is the chief neuropathologist for
Speaker 5: the coroner. And Buckland examined his brain and he made
Speaker 5: the CTE diagnosis.
Speaker 1: Okay, so tell me about the NRL's own research. What
Speaker 1: does their research say.
Speaker 2: Well, there was a couple of studies on depression and
Speaker 2: cognition and concussion and they found that the two were
Speaker 2: not correlated. And note also that they're only looking at concussion,
Speaker 2: they're not looking at years of exposure to football. So
Speaker 2: that's a real problem. There's other studies that are looking
Speaker 2: at what they call is the risk of over diagnosis
Speaker 2: in CTE, and they produced research suggesting that half of
Speaker 2: the American men who were diagnosed with depression would fit
Speaker 2: the in life criteria for the diagnosis of CTE. But
Speaker 2: that research ignores the very critical in question of whether
Speaker 2: or not they're exposed to repetitive head injury for ten
Speaker 2: years or more. They're doing a what they call a
Speaker 2: cradle to grave study of former NRL players, which they
Speaker 2: say will take thirty years to determine whether ct is
Speaker 2: caused by repetitive head injury. And you know, why would
Speaker 2: you do such a study when it's already known that
Speaker 2: that's what causes it, And families and former players say
Speaker 2: to you, look, we need help now. Why are they
Speaker 2: doing studies that won't come in for another thirty years
Speaker 2: and who knows if it's actually ever going to be
Speaker 2: completed when what we want now is help And that's
Speaker 2: what players and former players and the families are calling
Speaker 2: out for help now.
Speaker 1: One of the researches that the NRL have been in
Speaker 1: contact with and have worked with, his doctor Rudy Castellani,
Speaker 1: what have you found out about him?
Speaker 2: Well, doctor Castellani is one of the go to doctors
Speaker 2: used by professional sport around the world. You know, doctor
Speaker 2: Castellani has been on the conference circuit in sports concussion
Speaker 2: conferences for many years and so his views on CTE
Speaker 2: have been repeated numerous times in the last decade. He's
Speaker 2: used by the NRL in their research program and he
Speaker 2: is what he calls, quote an unabashed denier of CTE.
Speaker 2: He claims, this is a hypothesis.
Speaker 3: I'm an ambush to CTE is a well defined entity.
Speaker 3: I don't think it is clinically. I don't think it
Speaker 3: is pathologically. I don't think the reader progression or whether
Speaker 3: or not whatever it is.
Speaker 2: Now he is one of the key people who is
Speaker 2: part of this paradoxical position by the codes.
Speaker 6: But like to reiterate that the NRL takes the matter
Speaker 6: of repeated head trauma and concussion very seriously. Players safety
Speaker 6: and well being integral to the way in which we.
Speaker 2: Can The NRL made a quite extensive submission to the
Speaker 2: Senate Inquiry into Repetitive head Injury and Contact Sports, and
Speaker 2: they had about twenty pages of their research and Castellani
Speaker 2: was named as one of I think the thirteen researchers
Speaker 2: involved in I think what they call the International Consortium
Speaker 2: of Research into the Brain Health of Former Players. Do
Speaker 2: you recognize the casual relationship between concussion and ct.
Speaker 6: CT in its form as the neuropathological diagnosis made post
Speaker 6: mortem senator, there is an association with repeated head trauma.
Speaker 6: We don't know how strong this association is.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of controversy around that research. You know,
Speaker 2: they proclaim that they are you know, play health and
Speaker 2: safety is at the center of what they do, and
Speaker 2: they say that they're doing everything they can to make
Speaker 2: the game safer. So let's just accept that at face value.
Speaker 2: Their research is trying to re establish whether or not
Speaker 2: CT is caused by repetitive head injury when we actually
Speaker 2: know that it is. And so I think the question
Speaker 2: has to be asked of vested interests who are funding
Speaker 2: research that perhaps threatens their industries.
Speaker 1: The NRL is not the only code to have controversies
Speaker 1: with its research. That's after the break. When do we
Speaker 1: have a number of hicondact sports in Australia and RL
Speaker 1: and AFL are the two biggest with the most at stake.
Speaker 1: What are the steps of these codes take to better
Speaker 1: understand the threat of CTE for their players.
Speaker 2: Well, I think this is where it starts to get
Speaker 2: really interesting. The research that's done by the NRL and
Speaker 2: the AFL, it's not independent research. The AFL turns over
Speaker 2: a billion dollars a year and they have said for
Speaker 2: more than a decade that they've got these very comprehensive
Speaker 2: research programs into head injury. And they announced their first
Speaker 2: tranch of research, you know, more than a decade ago now,
Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, and then in twenty twenty two they
Speaker 2: had to admit that that had all been a complete
Speaker 2: fiasco after it was revealed that their top concussion researcher,
Speaker 2: doctor Paul McCrory, was a scientific fraud who plagiarized and
Speaker 2: made up scientific quotes to make it seem that head
Speaker 2: injury and concussion was less of a serious problem that
Speaker 2: it actually is. They announced that they were going to
Speaker 2: do a twenty five million dollar research program and it
Speaker 2: was going to involve brain donation to the Australian Sports
Speaker 2: Brain Bank and also a longitudinal program research program yet
Speaker 2: again trying to establish whether ct is caused by repetitive
Speaker 2: head injury will look now nearly three years on, those
Speaker 2: research programs do not appear to have begun. So once
Speaker 2: again there's a lot of controversy around the AFL's research
Speaker 2: program and whether or not they are actually telling the
Speaker 2: truth about what they're doing. But you know they will.
Speaker 2: You know, I when I put questions to the AFL now,
Speaker 2: as I routinely do, they don't even respond now to
Speaker 2: my questions about whether the research has begun or why
Speaker 2: they haven't begun their brain donor program. It's just shrouded
Speaker 2: in mystery.
Speaker 1: Really, if you were to do a comparison with how
Speaker 1: the NRL are grappling with it and how so the
Speaker 1: AFL are grappling with it, what differences do you so.
Speaker 2: One of the really fascinating things that's happening in Australia
Speaker 2: is the launching of class actions by former players against
Speaker 2: the codes and particularly the AFL. So I think one
Speaker 2: hundred former players have launched a class action against the
Speaker 2: AFL alleging that the AFL has done not enough to
Speaker 2: protect them from the effects of repetitive head injury and
Speaker 2: also not been frank with the former players about the
Speaker 2: risks of repetitive head injury. So this class action is
Speaker 2: likely to run for years, and it mirrors the billion
Speaker 2: dollar class action in the United States, where I think
Speaker 2: something like three and a half thousand former NFL players
Speaker 2: took the NFL to court alleging a cover up of
Speaker 2: quite gigantic proportions, alleging that the code had misled the
Speaker 2: players about the dangers of repetitive head injury, allowed them
Speaker 2: to continue to play while they're injured, and then these
Speaker 2: former players have been suffering, you know, long term effects
Speaker 2: of repetitive head injury, and then others have been suffering
Speaker 2: lifelong effects of depression, cognitive damage, and even the development
Speaker 2: of other clinical diagnosis of dementias such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Speaker 2: So I think at last count, the NFL's up for
Speaker 2: around two billion dollars, So you know, it's just not
Speaker 2: going to go away. It's just going to keep getting bigger.
Speaker 2: And the AFL has just announced they're going to spend
Speaker 2: a billion dollars recruiting new players to the game over
Speaker 2: the next ten years, so it's it's a huge amount
Speaker 2: of money. And they say that they're spending twenty five
Speaker 2: million dollars on research, so it speaks volumes to the
Speaker 2: concern the codes have around if not addressing this issue,
Speaker 2: which some would say is not really being addressed, but
Speaker 2: to managing public perceptions around around the issue.
Speaker 1: What else are experts that aren't paid by the big
Speaker 1: sporting codes saying in terms of preventing ct.
Speaker 2: They're saying, reduce contact training sessions.
Speaker 4: He wants the AFL to limits full contact training by
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, employee and independent concussion spotter, separate the
Speaker 4: club medicos with the power to remove a player from
Speaker 4: the field, improve players education about CTE, and to increase
Speaker 4: the number of players wearing special mouthguards that detect head knocks.
Speaker 2: These were the recommendations of the expert witness in the
Speaker 2: Shane Tuck coronial, but as yet neither code is embracing that.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that they're really grappling with it yet,
Speaker 2: but I think that as the threat of legal action increases,
Speaker 2: the codes will be under greater pressure to demonstrate that
Speaker 2: they're actually reducing the risk to prevent CTE.
Speaker 1: You think will ever be a medium between the tension
Speaker 1: around player safety and the spectacle of the game. You
Speaker 1: reckon that there's some way that that medium can be found.
Speaker 2: Well, we love the game, don't we We love the hits,
Speaker 2: that's what we love. We love that competitive physicality of
Speaker 2: the game. These are very big sports, they're very popular.
Speaker 2: But I do think that you know, the games have
Speaker 2: always changed and they've survived. We've had rules that you know,
Speaker 2: particularly in the NRL and the AFL, that have spared
Speaker 2: the game up, and the players are fitter and stronger
Speaker 2: than they have ever been. So it's a simple question
Speaker 2: of physics, isn't it. The hits are bigger there, the
Speaker 2: games are more intense, they're faster. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: think the game will ever end or will die. I
Speaker 2: just think it'll evolve to be safer.
Speaker 1: Wendy, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Daniel.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Australia's economy grew zero point
Speaker 1: two percent of the dune quarter and one percent over
Speaker 1: the last year, according to figures from the Australian Bureau
Speaker 1: of Statistics, excluding the COVID nineteen pandemic period. It's the
Speaker 1: weakest rate of annual growth in Australia since ninety one
Speaker 1: ninety two, the year which included the recovery from the
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one recession. The slow down in economic activity
Speaker 1: is in line with the APA's forecasts. However, does make
Speaker 1: any sudden interest rate move from the bank's board unlikely,
Speaker 1: and the Spring bush Fire Outlook shows that increase is
Speaker 1: for large parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory, as
Speaker 1: well as southwest of Victoria and neighbouring areas in South Australia.
Speaker 1: It comes as the Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting an
Speaker 1: increased chance of higher than average temperatures across many parts
Speaker 1: of the country from August to Ober. I'm Daniel James
Speaker 1: seven am will be back tomorrow