WEBVTT - Burden of Proof 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:19.436 --> 0:00:23.516 Before we begin, a warning this episode contains material that 0:00:23.596 --> 0:00:25.956 may be upsetting to some listeners. 0:00:27.476 --> 0:00:29.116 What was tell me a little bit about what Owen 0:00:29.196 --> 0:00:29.516 was like. 0:00:30.516 --> 0:00:37.636 When Owen was born, he was screaming and his neck 0:00:37.756 --> 0:00:42.596 veins were out, and the doctor said, this is a Viking. 0:00:43.596 --> 0:00:45.956 And I think that's kind of the way he lived 0:00:45.996 --> 0:00:49.916 a lot, you know, that kind of passion, So that's 0:00:49.956 --> 0:00:50.756 the way he lived. 0:00:53.356 --> 0:00:56.996 The man speaking is Tom Thomas. He's sitting with his wife, 0:00:57.076 --> 0:00:57.836 Kathy Brewerly. 0:00:58.476 --> 0:00:59.196 She's English. 0:00:59.716 --> 0:01:02.916 Both she and Tom are United Church pastors. They met 0:01:02.916 --> 0:01:05.836 when they were missionaries in Zambia. They have a son 0:01:05.916 --> 0:01:09.556 named Morgan, and we're all at Morgan's house just outside 0:01:09.556 --> 0:01:14.396 of Allentown, Pennsylvania, a bungalow in a tidy subdivision. There 0:01:14.396 --> 0:01:16.996 are two little children running around at a big friendly 0:01:17.076 --> 0:01:20.516 dog being big and friendly. Everyone has gathered to talk 0:01:20.556 --> 0:01:24.716 about Owen, the Viking, the son and brother. Who isn't there. 0:01:34.116 --> 0:01:37.156 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:01:37.396 --> 0:01:41.916 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode is 0:01:41.916 --> 0:01:44.916 about Owen Thomas, a young man I never had the 0:01:44.996 --> 0:01:48.516 chance to meet, about what happened to him, and why 0:01:48.556 --> 0:02:02.316 we shouldn't forget about it. I went to see Owen's 0:02:02.316 --> 0:02:04.276 family on a cold winter evening. 0:02:04.836 --> 0:02:08.996 We knew that he was kind of feeling down, feeling 0:02:09.196 --> 0:02:15.516 depressed in the last well, what would you say, last 0:02:15.556 --> 0:02:16.236 month or so. 0:02:16.476 --> 0:02:19.556 I didn't know that, well, I didn't know he was depressed. 0:02:19.556 --> 0:02:20.516 I knew he was stressed. 0:02:20.756 --> 0:02:24.396 He was stressed. He was stressed. School, fine classes. 0:02:25.236 --> 0:02:28.996 Owen went full out all the time at everything. His 0:02:29.156 --> 0:02:31.676 older brother Morgan, says he couldn't keep up. 0:02:31.996 --> 0:02:33.356 Yeah, so we were sort of like opposites. 0:02:33.396 --> 0:02:37.276 I was real good at giving like eighty seventy five percent, 0:02:37.396 --> 0:02:39.996 and he was not everything. But just like for example, 0:02:40.036 --> 0:02:43.796 school schooling, he would not take anything less than a plus, 0:02:44.276 --> 0:02:45.116 a a minus. 0:02:45.116 --> 0:02:48.356 He was pissed as. 0:02:47.956 --> 0:02:50.636 But now we don't know if he was having difficulty 0:02:50.716 --> 0:02:53.836 remembering things because we never even asked We never asked 0:02:53.876 --> 0:02:57.596 him that, we never we never even thought that there 0:02:57.636 --> 0:03:01.036 might be anything cognitive. We just thought this was a 0:03:01.196 --> 0:03:03.916 somebody who's a tight, a person who's kind of like 0:03:05.316 --> 0:03:06.876 demanding so much of himself. 0:03:06.956 --> 0:03:10.196 In retrospect, I guess when things like this happened in retrospect, 0:03:10.236 --> 0:03:11.956 you can always try to look back and say, oh, 0:03:11.956 --> 0:03:14.116 I should have seen this, I should have seen that. 0:03:17.636 --> 0:03:21.836 But the Sunday night he called, he really sounded depressed. 0:03:21.916 --> 0:03:24.556 Then he really did. 0:03:24.996 --> 0:03:25.956 And you know, now you. 0:03:25.876 --> 0:03:28.356 Look back, we should have just gotten the car gone 0:03:28.436 --> 0:03:28.876 right down. 0:03:29.916 --> 0:03:31.916 What did he talk about in that last car. 0:03:32.476 --> 0:03:35.156 Well, it was it'd be my birthday, so he was 0:03:35.876 --> 0:03:38.356 his wishing me happy birthday. Anna. What did you talk 0:03:38.356 --> 0:03:41.356 to you about, Tom? He said, I'm failing everything. 0:03:41.396 --> 0:03:42.196 That's what I say. 0:03:43.996 --> 0:03:46.956 When I said at the beginning that we shouldn't forget 0:03:46.956 --> 0:03:51.276 about Owen Thomas, I'm talking about this, that we shouldn't 0:03:51.276 --> 0:03:55.756 forget that. He went from clarity and purpose to failing everything. 0:04:01.796 --> 0:04:05.356 In twenty thirteen, I was invited to give a lecture 0:04:05.596 --> 0:04:08.436 at the University of Pennsylvania Welcome. 0:04:09.236 --> 0:04:12.396 It is my great pleasure on behalf of Penn's four 0:04:12.476 --> 0:04:16.076 hundred and fifty Benjamin Franklin scholars to welcome you to 0:04:16.156 --> 0:04:18.756 the twenty thirteen Benjamin Franklin Lectureship. 0:04:19.996 --> 0:04:22.476 The talk was at a big auditorium at the Penn Museum. 0:04:23.156 --> 0:04:26.716 I had been assigned a theme proof. That's obviously a 0:04:26.756 --> 0:04:28.956 big topic. So I thought that this afternoon I would 0:04:28.996 --> 0:04:35.556 start by asking a relatively simple question which is what 0:04:35.716 --> 0:04:38.916 level of proof do we need about the harmfulness of 0:04:38.956 --> 0:04:43.556 some activity before we act? I decided to tell the 0:04:43.596 --> 0:04:47.436 story of a man named Frederick Hoffman, a remarkable man 0:04:48.036 --> 0:04:50.836 born in eighteen sixty five in Germany immigrated to the 0:04:50.956 --> 0:04:54.836 United States. Hoffmann rose to the position of senior statistician 0:04:55.196 --> 0:04:58.996 at the Prudential Insurance Company. At the time, that was 0:04:59.036 --> 0:05:02.396 a hugely important job. This was in the years before 0:05:02.476 --> 0:05:06.716 Social Security or Medicare. Private insurers were the safety net, 0:05:07.476 --> 0:05:10.076 and because they had to figure out what to charge 0:05:10.076 --> 0:05:13.596 for life insurance premiums, they had to closely monitor the 0:05:13.636 --> 0:05:20.316 health of Americans. And that was Hoffman's job. He set 0:05:20.356 --> 0:05:23.356 out and he would cover the entire country and he 0:05:23.396 --> 0:05:26.956 would go and visit towns and cities and villages all 0:05:26.996 --> 0:05:31.636 across this land. And he would interview doctors and hospitals 0:05:31.796 --> 0:05:35.276 and funeral directors, and he would visit all the major employers, 0:05:35.316 --> 0:05:37.076 and he would go to the cemeteries and he would 0:05:37.116 --> 0:05:39.316 talk to people, and he would walk around the town 0:05:39.476 --> 0:05:41.236 and he would try and get a sense of what 0:05:41.316 --> 0:05:45.116 people are dying of. Hoffman was one of the first 0:05:45.116 --> 0:05:48.396 people to sound the alarm about smoking. He was one 0:05:48.436 --> 0:05:51.356 of the first to describe the terrible health conditions on 0:05:51.476 --> 0:05:56.476 Indian reservations, But perhaps his most important work concerned what 0:05:56.596 --> 0:06:01.756 was known at the time as miners asthma. I give 0:06:01.796 --> 0:06:04.276 a fair number of talks, and one of the things 0:06:04.276 --> 0:06:07.076 that you can usually tell is if you've lost your audience. 0:06:07.996 --> 0:06:10.836 And I remember that day pen thinking that I had 0:06:10.916 --> 0:06:14.636 no idea twenty minutes in I began to panic a 0:06:14.676 --> 0:06:18.316 little because I'm going on and on about Hoffman, about 0:06:18.596 --> 0:06:20.796 coal mining, about how big a deal coal was the 0:06:20.796 --> 0:06:23.756 turn of the century, About how much dust the process 0:06:23.796 --> 0:06:26.716 of coal mining created, About how coal miners would have 0:06:26.716 --> 0:06:30.996 coughing fits and spit up this black, inky substance, and 0:06:31.076 --> 0:06:33.236 they would cough more and more of it the more 0:06:33.276 --> 0:06:35.596 they mined in the more time they spent in the 0:06:35.636 --> 0:06:41.636 coal mines. That was absolutely beyond question. The audience is 0:06:41.636 --> 0:06:44.996 incredibly quiet, and I couldn't figure out if that was 0:06:45.036 --> 0:06:48.276 because they found the subject as fascinating as I did, 0:06:48.876 --> 0:06:52.636 or if they were thinking what on earth. The thing 0:06:52.676 --> 0:06:55.436 that no one could agree on was was that whether 0:06:55.476 --> 0:06:58.516 that was dangerous? Did it harm the health of someone 0:06:58.796 --> 0:07:02.756 to inhale all of this dust from coal mining miners? 0:07:02.796 --> 0:07:06.916 Asthma wasn't bothering the medical community and the mining companies. 0:07:07.716 --> 0:07:11.916 They said, look, miners have lower rates of tuberculosis than 0:07:11.916 --> 0:07:16.156 everyone else. TB is a respiratory disease, so maybe cole 0:07:16.236 --> 0:07:20.916 dust is protective in some way. Another argument was if 0:07:20.956 --> 0:07:24.316 miners were coughing up dust particles, then their lungs were 0:07:24.356 --> 0:07:27.076 functioning as they should. So for years and years and years, 0:07:27.076 --> 0:07:30.516 nobody paid particular attention to the problem of col dust 0:07:30.556 --> 0:07:32.996 because they had all of these arguments that they used 0:07:33.316 --> 0:07:37.156 to convince themselves that it wasn't a health risk. And 0:07:37.196 --> 0:07:42.116 then along comes Frederick Hoffman. Prudential ensured a lot of miners, 0:07:42.636 --> 0:07:44.876 and if they're dying young, then that was a real 0:07:44.956 --> 0:07:51.276 problem for Prudential. So Hoffman investigated and in nineteen eighteen 0:07:51.316 --> 0:07:56.036 he publishes this famous report was called Mortality from Respiratory 0:07:56.036 --> 0:07:59.156 Diseases in the Dusty Trades, and it comes out. It 0:07:59.196 --> 0:08:01.356 was published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the 0:08:01.396 --> 0:08:06.916 government federal government in nineteen eighteen. Hoffman was methodical. First, 0:08:06.956 --> 0:08:10.996 he looked at the government statistics on tiberulosis. He found 0:08:10.996 --> 0:08:14.316 no evidence miners had lower rates of TB. Then he 0:08:14.356 --> 0:08:17.916 looked at asthma death rates. They were five times higher 0:08:17.916 --> 0:08:21.836 for coal miners than for other working men. Hoffmann looked 0:08:21.836 --> 0:08:25.196 at census data who was still working after the age 0:08:25.196 --> 0:08:28.636 of forty five. For farmers at the time, almost a 0:08:28.716 --> 0:08:32.476 third were still working. For miners it was a fifth. 0:08:33.436 --> 0:08:36.596 If mining was so healthy, why were all the miners 0:08:36.596 --> 0:08:41.036 disappearing from their profession. So he adds all this up, 0:08:41.036 --> 0:08:43.116 but he says, look, I don't buy it. I think 0:08:43.156 --> 0:08:45.756 that this miners asthma's thing is something that we should 0:08:45.756 --> 0:08:50.156 be concerned about. So here we have the senior statistician 0:08:50.436 --> 0:08:54.316 from one of the most powerful and important institutions in 0:08:54.356 --> 0:08:58.036 the country publishing a report on the health of workers 0:08:58.076 --> 0:09:01.476 in one of the most important and critical industries in 0:09:01.516 --> 0:09:04.996 the country and saying there's a problem. So what do 0:09:04.996 --> 0:09:13.036 you think happens? Nothing happens, nothing think whatsoever? And why 0:09:13.036 --> 0:09:16.676 does nothing happen? Because all kinds of people stood up 0:09:16.716 --> 0:09:21.516 and read Hoffman's report and said, you've got no proof. 0:09:24.836 --> 0:09:27.716 Let's give the students at pen credit for their patients. 0:09:28.316 --> 0:09:30.596 Because this part of my talk went on for a 0:09:30.756 --> 0:09:33.836 very long time, but I was trying to answer the 0:09:33.916 --> 0:09:37.796 question at the core of proof, At what point do 0:09:37.876 --> 0:09:43.036 you act? People argued after Hoffmann published his report that 0:09:43.076 --> 0:09:46.156 we still didn't know quite enough, that he had a 0:09:46.156 --> 0:09:51.716 lot of suggestive evidence but not definitive evidence. And that 0:09:51.916 --> 0:09:55.916 was true, But it was also irrelevant because if you 0:09:55.996 --> 0:09:59.516 wait until the evidence is perfect and complete, you'll never act. 0:10:00.596 --> 0:10:04.116 It was not until the nineteen seventies that people suddenly 0:10:04.356 --> 0:10:09.836 realized that tens of thousands of miners were dying horrible deaths, 0:10:10.236 --> 0:10:14.876 vastly prematurely because of the dust they inhaled while working. 0:10:14.676 --> 0:10:15.356 In the minds. 0:10:18.196 --> 0:10:21.556 Now, I think we can all agree that that is 0:10:22.356 --> 0:10:28.756 a appalling story, right, that should never have happened. We 0:10:28.796 --> 0:10:31.476 should have acted on this in nineteen eighteen. Instead, we 0:10:31.516 --> 0:10:35.396 acted on this in nineteen seventy five. We look around 0:10:35.476 --> 0:10:37.596 the room and we say to ourselves, we would never 0:10:37.636 --> 0:10:42.676 do that, would we We're much too educated and sophisticated 0:10:43.076 --> 0:10:47.436 and empathetic to ever look at the suffering of someone 0:10:47.476 --> 0:10:50.156 else and say, oh, we're not going to act until 0:10:50.196 --> 0:10:55.956 we have proof. But we do do that. All of 0:10:56.036 --> 0:10:59.796 us do that. Everyone in this room is doing that 0:11:00.596 --> 0:11:05.876 even as we speak. Now, what am I talking about? 0:11:07.476 --> 0:11:20.396 I'm talking about football. Owen Thomas, the Redheaded Viking, was 0:11:20.436 --> 0:11:24.116 a football player. So is his father Tom. 0:11:24.396 --> 0:11:28.196 It was the nineteen sixties. Yeah, so I was a 0:11:28.276 --> 0:11:30.956 full back, which in the backfield. If you know anything 0:11:30.956 --> 0:11:32.436 about American football. 0:11:32.876 --> 0:11:37.756 Owen's grandfather played for Millersville University. His older brother, Morgan, 0:11:37.916 --> 0:11:41.756 played offensive tackle for East Stroudsburg University. 0:11:41.796 --> 0:11:42.436 And then Owen played. 0:11:42.876 --> 0:11:44.596 So I guess we're kind of a football family. 0:11:44.836 --> 0:11:45.996 Yeah. 0:11:46.036 --> 0:11:48.876 On the dining table right in front of me are 0:11:48.996 --> 0:11:52.716 Owen's helmets from middle school and high school and college, 0:11:53.316 --> 0:11:56.196 all scratched and battered, lined up in a row. 0:11:56.436 --> 0:11:58.556 It's hard for alignment to be a star, you know, 0:11:58.676 --> 0:12:00.916 like you running back, quarterback, those are really the stars. 0:12:00.916 --> 0:12:04.476 But he was definitely a feared player from all angles 0:12:04.516 --> 0:12:06.836 and people knew who he was, so he was definitely 0:12:06.836 --> 0:12:08.596 one of the one of the stars. 0:12:09.196 --> 0:12:11.636 He couldn't wait for the season to begin. You know, 0:12:11.716 --> 0:12:15.916 most most of the football players say, oh, I just 0:12:16.316 --> 0:12:17.596 I don't want to The. 0:12:17.596 --> 0:12:21.036 First day of practice was would just be like like running, 0:12:21.156 --> 0:12:22.556 putting on a uniform and running. 0:12:22.596 --> 0:12:24.556 For him said I just can't wait to hit somebody. 0:12:24.596 --> 0:12:25.556 I just want to hit something. 0:12:25.636 --> 0:12:28.636 And that was that's his own team, that's his own team. 0:12:28.636 --> 0:12:34.316 That when it came time for college, Owen Thomas went 0:12:34.876 --> 0:12:36.396 to the University of Pennsylvania. 0:12:37.436 --> 0:12:38.836 He was just kind of guy that on a on 0:12:38.876 --> 0:12:40.596 a bad day when they had to wake up at 0:12:40.596 --> 0:12:42.676 six seven o'clock in the morning to do a workout 0:12:42.716 --> 0:12:45.836 and everyone you know, had class and everything. He was 0:12:45.876 --> 0:12:48.636 the kind of guy that would get everybody motivated to 0:12:48.716 --> 0:12:52.156 complete the workout and then go on with your day. 0:12:53.356 --> 0:12:56.716 He was named captain of the football team. Seventy six 0:12:56.916 --> 0:13:00.316 out of the eighty players voted for him. Then, one 0:13:00.396 --> 0:13:03.556 day out of the blue, in the spring of his 0:13:03.636 --> 0:13:07.276 junior year, he hung himself in his apartment. 0:13:15.036 --> 0:13:18.316 Tom sent me a text message except I was listened 0:13:18.316 --> 0:13:23.076 to an a lecture, so saying call me. Well, there 0:13:23.076 --> 0:13:24.916 are all these messages, call me, call me, call me. 0:13:26.956 --> 0:13:30.716 They drove down to Philadelphia, they went to identify their 0:13:30.716 --> 0:13:33.916 son's body in the hospital, and in the car on 0:13:33.956 --> 0:13:37.676 the way back on this terrible, terrible day, they got 0:13:37.716 --> 0:13:42.516 a call from someone named Chris Newinski. Newinski is a 0:13:42.516 --> 0:13:46.516 former college football player with a PhD in neuroscience who 0:13:46.596 --> 0:13:50.276 runs the Concussion Legacy Foundation. He works with a group 0:13:50.356 --> 0:13:54.956 of researchers at Boston University. For more than a decade, 0:13:55.196 --> 0:13:58.236 they've been autopsyying the brains of people who have, in 0:13:58.276 --> 0:14:01.516 the course of their lives suffered repeated blows to the head, 0:14:02.556 --> 0:14:12.036 looking for something called chronic traumatic encephalopathy CTE. Getting hit 0:14:12.116 --> 0:14:14.796 in the head causes your brain to twist and bruise 0:14:15.836 --> 0:14:19.596 if you get hit enough times. That bruising causes the 0:14:19.636 --> 0:14:24.396 accumulation of a protein called TAO, and that tao slowly 0:14:24.436 --> 0:14:29.476 works its way through the brain like a poison. So far, 0:14:29.876 --> 0:14:33.276 Newinski's group has autopsied the brains of one hundred and 0:14:33.276 --> 0:14:39.956 eleven former NFL players. One hundred and ten had CTE. 0:14:40.196 --> 0:14:43.236 Seven of eight former Canadian Football League players had it, 0:14:43.836 --> 0:14:47.476 so did nine of fourteen semi pro players, forty eight 0:14:47.596 --> 0:14:51.756 of fifty three college players, three out of fourteen high 0:14:51.796 --> 0:15:01.316 school players. The symptoms of ct include difficulty thinking, impulsive behavior, depression, 0:15:01.836 --> 0:15:07.716 short term memory loss, difficulty planning, emotional instability, and suicidal 0:15:07.756 --> 0:15:14.716 thoughts and behavior. It's not pleasant. One of the first 0:15:14.716 --> 0:15:18.836 pro players diagnosed with CTE was Mike Webster. He was 0:15:18.876 --> 0:15:21.996 a Hall of Fame center with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He 0:15:22.036 --> 0:15:27.076 died at fifty. In his house, his family found page 0:15:27.196 --> 0:15:31.276 after page of scrippled notes written by Webster to document 0:15:31.356 --> 0:15:37.676 his mental state. Like this, deep confusing, twisting, fishing line, 0:15:37.756 --> 0:15:41.196 tangled up mess of confusing things go. 0:15:41.196 --> 0:15:42.076 On all the time? 0:15:43.916 --> 0:15:47.236 Or Junior Seou and Dave Durson, two of the great 0:15:47.236 --> 0:15:51.156 football players of their generation, both shot themselves in the 0:15:51.236 --> 0:15:55.676 chest at the ages of forty three and fifty Why 0:15:55.756 --> 0:15:58.796 in the chest to make sure their brains were intact 0:15:58.876 --> 0:16:08.796 for autopsy to make the pathologists job easier? Now our 0:16:08.836 --> 0:16:12.996 case like this absolute proof of a connection between CTE 0:16:13.436 --> 0:16:17.356 and football players getting hit in the head. No. The 0:16:17.436 --> 0:16:20.636 research group at Boston University has just published a study 0:16:20.676 --> 0:16:23.556 which looked at players who had started playing tackle football 0:16:23.596 --> 0:16:27.876 before the age of twelve. I'm quoting youth exposure to 0:16:27.876 --> 0:16:33.596 tackle football may reduce resiliency to late life neuropathology may 0:16:33.916 --> 0:16:39.156 reduce Remember they're working from a non representative sample autopsies 0:16:39.196 --> 0:16:44.396 conducted on players whose families believe something was wrong. Proof 0:16:44.396 --> 0:16:47.476 would be if you identified two thousand people, half of 0:16:47.516 --> 0:16:50.556 whom played football and half of whom do not, followed 0:16:50.596 --> 0:16:53.156 them over the course of their lives and compared the 0:16:53.196 --> 0:16:56.916 autopsies of their brains at death. Did the football players 0:16:56.956 --> 0:17:00.036 have on average more the protein TAO in their brain 0:17:00.116 --> 0:17:04.956 tissue than the non football players. The problem is that 0:17:04.996 --> 0:17:08.716 the average American male life expectancy is seventy five years. 0:17:09.516 --> 0:17:13.036 If we start that study now, we'll have definitive proof 0:17:13.556 --> 0:17:18.036 somewhere around the turn of the next century. The much 0:17:18.476 --> 0:17:21.916 much harder question is what you do in the interim, 0:17:22.196 --> 0:17:24.956 And the answer is that you do what Chris Nowinski 0:17:25.276 --> 0:17:29.876 of the Concussion Foundation does. You plug away. You call 0:17:29.956 --> 0:17:32.916 people up at the height of their grief and ask 0:17:32.996 --> 0:17:36.516 them for brain tissue before the body of their loved 0:17:36.516 --> 0:17:40.916 one is buried or cremated. You call up people like 0:17:40.996 --> 0:17:42.196 Owen Thomas's parents. 0:17:42.756 --> 0:17:45.716 This is a day when it was like poured and 0:17:45.876 --> 0:17:49.876 poured and poured with rain the whole day, and so 0:17:49.916 --> 0:17:52.356 we were going back. It was must have been about 0:17:52.396 --> 0:17:55.916 like ten o'clock at night, right driving at the turnpike, 0:17:57.116 --> 0:18:00.116 and suddenly this I get this phone call from this 0:18:00.356 --> 0:18:02.436 person whose name I can hardly understand. 0:18:03.596 --> 0:18:05.796 The Thomases were too stunned to say no. 0:18:06.516 --> 0:18:08.436 But he still had to do quite a lot of 0:18:08.436 --> 0:18:12.436 work because he had to then call the undertaker and 0:18:12.476 --> 0:18:16.116 get the undertaker to get the brain matter which had 0:18:16.156 --> 0:18:19.836 been just like dumped in a bag by the medical examiner. Yeah, 0:18:19.956 --> 0:18:28.236 he has something to answer from. Well, the medical examiner 0:18:28.876 --> 0:18:32.156 did an autopsy. Right, So this was a football player 0:18:32.476 --> 0:18:35.796 who had committed suicide and he didn't he didn't make 0:18:35.836 --> 0:18:41.756 any attempt to preserve the brain matter, which now I 0:18:41.756 --> 0:18:44.756 look back on it and I think, how crazy is 0:18:44.836 --> 0:18:48.316 that that that the brain matter was just like all 0:18:48.356 --> 0:18:51.116 mixed up with all the rest of the bits and 0:18:51.116 --> 0:18:53.236 pieces and just thrown in a bag. 0:18:55.716 --> 0:19:00.436 Owen Thomas died in April. The following September, his parents 0:19:00.636 --> 0:19:05.996 got a second call. Owen had CTE and suddenly it 0:19:06.076 --> 0:19:10.756 all made sense. Why they're focused, joyful, high spirited son 0:19:11.276 --> 0:19:14.596 had suddenly called and said, I'm failing at everything. 0:19:15.076 --> 0:19:16.956 How did that news change you? 0:19:17.156 --> 0:19:17.196 We? 0:19:17.316 --> 0:19:19.996 What was the impact on hearing that? You said? You 0:19:20.036 --> 0:19:21.596 were relieved in some sense. 0:19:22.316 --> 0:19:26.116 That there was a contributing factor, that it wasn't just depression, 0:19:26.236 --> 0:19:29.836 that there was a cause that you could medical cause 0:19:29.876 --> 0:19:32.516 that you could maybe say that contributed to him. 0:19:35.716 --> 0:19:38.836 Well, it gave us a hold on He gave us 0:19:38.836 --> 0:19:39.836 a purpose. 0:19:42.156 --> 0:19:45.396 Not an answer, because there's still too much unknown for 0:19:45.436 --> 0:19:59.636 that a purpose. Now what am I talking about? I'm 0:19:59.636 --> 0:20:05.836 talking about football. What do we know about football? We 0:20:05.916 --> 0:20:09.316 know about football approximately what Frederick Kaufman knew about old 0:20:09.396 --> 0:20:14.916 dust in nineteen eighteen. So there I was in the 0:20:14.956 --> 0:20:20.716 Harrison Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania. It was twenty thirteen. 0:20:21.516 --> 0:20:24.676 Owen Thomas had been dead for three years. There were 0:20:24.716 --> 0:20:28.516 students in the room who had known him, who remembered him. 0:20:29.116 --> 0:20:31.276 So I told the story of how he was found 0:20:31.956 --> 0:20:35.036 hanging in his apartment, and I asked them, is that 0:20:35.356 --> 0:20:38.596 enough proof for you? Is the death of someone you 0:20:38.676 --> 0:20:41.356 went to school with who was the captain of your 0:20:41.396 --> 0:20:45.356 football team enough evidence to walk away from the game? 0:20:50.556 --> 0:20:53.836 I sometimes think about that moment. When I met Bob's 0:20:53.916 --> 0:20:56.676 Library at New York University, I do a lot of 0:20:56.716 --> 0:21:00.196 my research there. The library has a massive, multi story 0:21:00.276 --> 0:21:03.796 atrium at its center, and a few years ago a 0:21:03.876 --> 0:21:06.956 student jumped over one of the railings overlooking the atrium, 0:21:08.276 --> 0:21:13.236 and immediately, immediately, and at great expense, the university put 0:21:13.316 --> 0:21:17.396 up high plexiglass screens in front of every railing. Then 0:21:17.636 --> 0:21:20.396 a few years after that, a student found a way 0:21:20.436 --> 0:21:23.196 to wriggle over the plexiglass and jump to his death. 0:21:23.676 --> 0:21:28.076 So the university installed an even more expensive and elaborate 0:21:28.356 --> 0:21:31.716 and fool proof metal screen that was impossible to get 0:21:31.756 --> 0:21:37.996 around or over. Two suicides, and they spent millions of dollars. 0:21:38.836 --> 0:21:42.036 Why because the job of a university is to watch 0:21:42.036 --> 0:21:44.596 out for the welfare of the students under its care. 0:21:45.196 --> 0:22:07.836 And NYU didn't need any more evidence to act. 0:21:58.676 --> 0:22:02.636 Two thousand and nine lits in a crowd by coming 0:22:02.676 --> 0:22:07.036 together in order to overcome the adversity the plans stake 0:22:07.116 --> 0:22:09.596 in the field. In November, here. 0:22:09.516 --> 0:22:11.996 Is what Penn did in response to the suicide of 0:22:11.996 --> 0:22:16.156 Owen Thomas and the results of his brain autopsy. They 0:22:16.156 --> 0:22:19.716 honored him with forty seconds of silence before the season 0:22:19.756 --> 0:22:24.116 opener the next fall against Lafayette. Owen's jersey had been 0:22:24.196 --> 0:22:28.956 number forty. His teammates wore decals on their helmets with 0:22:29.036 --> 0:22:29.916 the number forty on. 0:22:29.996 --> 0:22:34.636 Them, blinking hand in hand parallel to the sideline, standing 0:22:34.676 --> 0:22:38.636 for a forty second moment of silence and tribute to 0:22:38.876 --> 0:22:43.516 their former teammate Owen Thomas, who pass away on Monday 0:22:43.596 --> 0:22:46.836 Aprilty twenty six this past off season. 0:22:47.716 --> 0:22:51.156 And here is the statement the university issued upon hearing 0:22:51.196 --> 0:22:55.116 that Owen Thomas had been diagnosed with CTE. I read 0:22:55.156 --> 0:22:57.116 it to the audience when I was at Penn in 0:22:57.156 --> 0:23:01.116 twenty thirteen. While we will never know the cause of 0:23:01.156 --> 0:23:04.956 Owen Thomas's depression and subsequent suicide. We are aware of 0:23:05.116 --> 0:23:07.996 and deeply concerned about the medical issues now being raised 0:23:07.996 --> 0:23:11.036 about football head injury, and will continue to work with 0:23:11.116 --> 0:23:13.836 the Ivy League and the medical community in addressing these issues. 0:23:14.716 --> 0:23:18.276 Owen's untimely death was a terrible tragedy, and we continued 0:23:18.316 --> 0:23:23.796 to grieve for his loss. Where to start. Let's start 0:23:23.836 --> 0:23:26.156 with the statement we will never know the cause of 0:23:26.196 --> 0:23:30.556 Owen Thomas's depression and subsequent suicide. Are you kidding me? 0:23:32.076 --> 0:23:35.476 What is there more to know? A healthy young man 0:23:35.516 --> 0:23:39.236 with no previous history of depression hangs himself in his 0:23:39.316 --> 0:23:42.116 apartment and when they do an autopsy on his brain, 0:23:42.196 --> 0:23:45.436 they find he has the beginnings of a debilitating neurological 0:23:45.516 --> 0:23:49.956 disorder caused by taking too many hits on the football field. 0:23:50.636 --> 0:23:55.276 And then the statement we are aware and deeply concerned 0:23:55.276 --> 0:23:58.356 about the medical issues being raised about football head injuries. 0:24:00.476 --> 0:24:03.036 We are so aware and deeply concerned about the medical 0:24:03.036 --> 0:24:06.156 issues being raised about football head injuries that three years 0:24:06.196 --> 0:24:13.596 after Owen Thomas's death, Penn continues to play football. In 0:24:13.636 --> 0:24:17.156 my book, that does not count as concern. That is 0:24:17.276 --> 0:24:28.636 moral indifference, not long ago. I went to see Albegnoli. 0:24:29.436 --> 0:24:33.116 He's the head football coach at Glumbia University. Before that 0:24:33.476 --> 0:24:37.116 he was at Penn. He was Owen Thomas's coach, and 0:24:37.156 --> 0:24:41.596 he reminded me I'd left someone out. Owen Thomas wasn't 0:24:41.596 --> 0:24:42.316 the only one. 0:24:42.636 --> 0:24:45.556 Oh, we had two. We had Kyle Ambrosey too. They're 0:24:45.596 --> 0:24:49.956 both traumatic. But Kyle's was unbelievable because. 0:24:50.476 --> 0:24:54.156 That happened right in mid season, So it happened after 0:24:54.196 --> 0:24:56.796 he scored two touchdowns or we'd beat Buck now fifty 0:24:56.836 --> 0:24:57.676 one or something. 0:24:59.476 --> 0:25:03.636 Kyle Ambrosi star running back on the Penn football team 0:25:03.956 --> 0:25:06.676 and a student at the Wharton School of Business, just 0:25:06.716 --> 0:25:11.236 like Owen Thomas. He shot himself at his mother's house 0:25:11.836 --> 0:25:16.876 in October two thousand and five. There wasn't an autopsy 0:25:16.916 --> 0:25:21.076 on Kyle Ambrosie's brain in two thousand and five. CTE 0:25:21.156 --> 0:25:23.316 just wasn't on people's radar in the same way that 0:25:23.356 --> 0:25:26.076 it is now, So we'll never know whether he suffered 0:25:26.076 --> 0:25:28.556 from the disease the way we know with Owen Thomas. 0:25:29.156 --> 0:25:34.516 We don't have proof, but what happened to Kyle Ambrogie 0:25:34.636 --> 0:25:38.516 sounds very much like what happened to Owen Thomas. All 0:25:38.556 --> 0:25:41.396 his life, a young man plays a sport that involves 0:25:41.436 --> 0:25:45.996 repeated blows to his brain, until suddenly he fell apart 0:25:46.036 --> 0:25:47.716 in a way that looks an awful lot, like the 0:25:47.756 --> 0:25:51.356 way people fall apart after they've had repeated blows to 0:25:51.436 --> 0:25:51.916 their brain. 0:26:00.036 --> 0:26:03.316 You know, there is even physical changes, like his eye 0:26:03.316 --> 0:26:06.916 color got lighter, and you can just see that he 0:26:07.076 --> 0:26:10.316 was fighting demons and he couldn't explain them. 0:26:10.916 --> 0:26:12.836 That's Kyle Ambrogie's brother Greg. 0:26:14.076 --> 0:26:17.596 I asked him, and he, you know, would try to 0:26:17.596 --> 0:26:20.396 explain them, and he just would run out of words. 0:26:20.396 --> 0:26:22.396 He would open his mouth and nothing would come out, 0:26:22.396 --> 0:26:24.276 and I would just look at him and I didn't. 0:26:24.516 --> 0:26:26.476 Yeah, the only thing he said to me is, Mommy, 0:26:26.516 --> 0:26:27.116