January 20, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, host Bruce Parkman and expert neurologist Dr. Daniel Kantor tackle the critical issue of repetitive brain trauma in youth sports. Together, they explore the dangers of concussions and sub-concussive hits on young athletes, emphasizing the ongoing development of the human brain and the lifelong impact of head injuries.
Dr. Kantor advocates for legislative changes, improved safety protocols, and the role of organizations like the NCAA in prioritizing athlete safety. The conversation dives into the importance of educating parents, coaches, and medical professionals about the risks of sub-concussive trauma and the urgent need for diagnostic tools and injury prevention measures.
This episode is a call to action for parents, educators, and policymakers to reimagine youth sports with brain health at the forefront. Listen now and be part of the movement to protect the next generation. Don’t forget to follow, share, like, and subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts!
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
Support The Mac Parkman Foundation by donating today!
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
02:14 Understanding Concussions in Youth Sports
06:47 Legislation and Safety Measures for Athletes
10:05 The Impact of Subconcussive Hits
14:35 Challenges in Addressing Brain Injury Awareness
18:24 Proposed Changes to Youth Contact Sports
23:12 Minimizing Exposure in Youth Sports
24:30 The Role of NCAA in Youth Sports Safety
25:29 The Importance of Raw Talent and Injury Prevention
26:56 Legislation and State Agreements on Sports Safety
30:14 Education and Awareness on Subconcussive Trauma
34:34 Protocols for Diagnosing Brain Trauma
39:20 The Reality of Brain Injuries in Sports
42:28 A Call for Safer Sports Practices
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Connect with Dr. Kantor today!
LinkedIn: Daniel Kantor, MD, FAAN
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kantorneurology/
Instagram: kantorneurology
https://www.instagram.com/kantorneurology/
YouTube: @KantorNeurology
https://www.youtube.com/c/KantorNeurology
Website: kantorneurology.com
Produced by Security Halt Media
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey folks, welcome back to another episode of
Broken Brains with me, your host, bruce Parkman.
Our show is focused on theissue of repetitive brain trauma
, particularly covering theissues of repetitive head
impacts from sports andrepetitive blast exposure in our
military veterans and what thisexposure is doing to the brains
of these kids, athletes andveterans, of what we can do as a
(00:32):
society to improve the safetyof sports and military service.
We look at researchers,scientists, patients, advocates
and brain experts across theissue and bring them here in the
podcast so that you, the viewer, are as formed as possible of
what is going on out there andwhat we can do, because this is
(00:55):
the largest preventable cause ofmental illness in this country
and we are all in a positionwhere we need to do better.
On our show today is anotherawesome guest, dr Cantor.
Dr Cantor is the PresidentEmeritus of the Florida Society
of Neurology and, after studyingliterary and computer science
(01:16):
at Penn, he enrolled a charterclass at Ben Gurion University
and Columbia University and,after completing his neurology
residency at Thomas JeffersonUniversity, he chose to remain
in the US and use his healthcareskills to help urban and rural
populations, as a director ofComprehensive MS Center,
(01:37):
university of Florida, inJacksonville.
Most recently he served as thedirector of the Division of
Neurology and as the inauguralneurology residency program
director at Florida AtlanticUniversity.
Go Owls, watch them in the NCAAchampionship there a couple of
years ago.
Dr Cantor, I mean, what anamazing resume to bring to the
(01:59):
show today.
We really appreciate it, and weknow that you're heavily
involved in the issue of courseneurology.
Now you are a neurologist, sir.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yes, I am, yes, I am, and I'm actually here in
Florida.
I chair the subcommittee onconcussion for the sports
medicine advisory committee ofthe Florida High School Athletic
Association.
So what I deal with every dayis how do we prevent and how do
we hopefully treat what arepreventable head injuries in our
(02:32):
children?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
That's an amazing well, I didn't know about that.
That's an amazing perspectivethat you have on youth sports.
Now we've talked to the FloridaHigh School Association about
the issue of repetitive headinjuries and what we have to do,
because if we could let's justdive into this if we could stop
contact in practice in footballor cross heading I mean heading
(02:54):
in soccer, rugby we couldeliminate massive amounts of the
exposure that's in the endhurting these kids.
I mean, how long have you beenin this position, sir, and what
is the progress that you'reseeing on understanding the
threat of repetitive ed impactsas a risk to our children and
what can we do to do a betterjob of working to improve the
(03:17):
levels of exposure?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
In early 2010, so about 2013,.
Florida was one of the statesthat now we have all 50 states,
but one of the states that saidwait a second, we have to do
something to stop concussions,and one way to do that is not to
get rid of sports, because, asyou say in your book, as you say
(03:40):
really eloquently, we can't dothat.
We're America, we're intosports.
Sports is great for many otherthings, but we got to do it
responsibly.
So we said, well, let's bringdown the threshold to take
someone out of play and then,when we take them out of play,
let's make the threshold higherto put them back into play, and
(04:00):
that was the basic idea.
Now, historically, what happenedin Florida was the legislation
first went up by a Florida Housemember who's actually a
physician, dr Renwart, and hetried making it that only MDs
and DOs so medical doctors andosteopathic doctors, would be
(04:20):
the ones to put patients backinto play.
So the kids would be taken outby the coach or by anybody, by
the trainer, by the coach, by aparent, but then they could only
go in by a medical doctor orosteopathic doctor.
The last day of legislativesession in Florida one of the
(04:44):
House members or senators he wasa chiropractor and he added on
chiropractic doctors tochiropractic physicians to be
the one.
So they killed the bill thatyear.
But I think what the FloridaHigh School Athletic Association
did really smartly is they sawthe writing on the wall and so
they set up a sports medicineadvisory committee, and in that
(05:05):
sports medicine advisorycommittee I became the chair of
the subcommittee on concussion,and so a year later they passed
legislation in Florida and nowthere's legislation in every
state.
But the legislation basicallysays that they have to set up a
committee and then thatcommittee has to make rules and
(05:27):
propagate rules, and so thecommittee has deferred a lot of
those rules, obviously to thesubcommittee on concussion.
You know, one of the issuesI've noticed in Florida is it's
a large, large state.
People forget that we're verylong but we're also very wide.
We're actually in two timezones.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
It takes forever to drive across the state.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
When you get all the way to Pensacola, you're in a
different time zone.
You're in central time zone,and so you need to be able to
have the same rules in a bigcity area Like I live in
southern Florida, between FortLauderdale and Boca, a place
called Parkland, whichunfortunately made the news in
2018.
(06:07):
And you have to have the samerules here as you do in the
panhandle of Florida.
Where there may not be an MD orDO or a chiropractor for
hundreds of miles, and youcertainly won't be a neurologist
for many hundreds of miles, andso we have to make the same
rules in all those places, andthe basic idea is to try to make
(06:29):
it very easy for someone tocome out of play and harder for
them to get back into play.
Now, with that said, what doesharder mean?
It means there's, as you'vetalked about before, there's the
graded or graduated return toplay, and so these international
ideas of return to play arebasically that at every step you
(06:53):
don't have symptoms for 24hours and you go on to the next
step.
The problem with that is youactually can go pretty fast.
You can go from having aconcussion, can go pretty fast.
You can go from being, you know, having a concussion, but
having no symptoms then for 24hours.
Then you go into light exercise, you know light, light movement
no, no, uh, no, no symptoms.
Then you go into the next oneand you have no symptoms and
(07:16):
eventually you're back atcontact sports, and the next
week weekend you might actuallybe back in a game.
You're sure that is maybe OK forNFL players, maybe it's not OK
for elementary school studentsand it's probably not OK for
many of the high school students, especially in the younger side
(07:37):
of it I mean the human brain asyou talk about.
Really well, if anyone outthere hasn't looked at your book
and read it, it's a very easyread, it's a very important read
and I think it's a book that Ithink gives tribute both to your
son's life but also to thescience of what's going on.
And when I read it, whatactually made me most amazed was
(08:01):
I was like but this stuff isobvious.
And then I was like maybe it'snot obvious to everyone, like
I'm gonna run this, what I dofor a living, like it's obvious
to me, but maybe it's notobvious to everyone.
And made me really open, evensomeone who's who stands out
there as an advocate, realizingthat there's still so many gaps
(08:21):
in kind of where we are.
And so what happens is, youknow, as the body gets bigger,
you know things start to developbetter.
You start to become better atrunning and you become better at
talking, become better ateverything.
But your brain, even though youdon't see it, it's still taking
times to form, and your humanbrain is not fully myelinated,
especially in what we call thefrontal cortex, the area that
(08:44):
makes the importantdecision-making.
We call it the executivefunctioning of the brain.
That doesn't happen until, likeyou're, in your early 20s.
Even after the time that weallow people to drink alcohol
and to vote and to serve in themilitary, that is still
developing.
So I'm not saying we shouldtake away all these things and
(09:04):
change what we decide a humanbeing is and what an adult is,
but we should realize thatthere's a reason why teenagers
are more impulsive.
There's a reason why with agecomes wisdom.
As you go, not only do you getnew experiences, your actual
brain is still forming.
You're still getting thatmyelin, it's still getting that
(09:26):
white matter covering, thatfatty white matter covering in
the front of the brain and alsoin other parts of the brain.
And so when you damage that,when it's still forming, that's
not good.
You can imagine when you have abone that's still growing and
you damage it, it's not going togrow as well, and the same
might be true for the humanbrain.
Now it is true that we haveamazing resilience as human
(09:48):
beings and we have this idea ofneuroplasticity and things can
make amazing kind of changes.
You can have people with onlyhalf their brain and they're
still able to function.
But that's not what we want.
We don't want to be in thatposition.
And you bring up another reallygood point, which is when we
think about baseball especially,we think about you know how
(10:11):
many pitch counts you have.
We don't want to damage theperson's shoulder, we don't
damage the person's elbow, wedon't have that for the head,
and we don't have that for thehead for several reasons.
One of those reasons is wedon't actually know.
So we don't know how many hitsis too much.
So when you're throwing abaseball and you throw it over
(10:33):
and over, eventually what you'regoing to do is you're going to
tear your ligaments and tendons,and it's not going to be good
for you.
But with the brain you get.
Even these hits that don't causea concussion.
No one notices that.
Even the person themselvesdoesn't notice, or their family,
but they're what we callsubconcussive hits, so almost at
(10:54):
the point of concussion, but alittle bit less.
And if you think it's hard todiagnose concussions or to
notice a concussion, it'sdefinitely hard to notice a
subconcussive hit.
We could, though, as a society,say well, a subconcussive hit
is a certain amount of force ata certain angle.
(11:14):
Okay, how do you measure that?
Well, that, we definitely havethe technology.
We have inserts inside helmets,we have the engineering that
makes it possible.
It's a little more expensive,obviously, than your regular
helmet, but we have thepossibility of knowing and
counting how many of those hitspeople can have.
And what we could do is we couldchoose an arbitrary number.
(11:36):
We could be wrong, we could sayyou're allowed to have this
many per season and this manyper lifetime of play, and we may
find out in the future thatwe're wrong, that maybe the
number is less or maybe thenumber is more.
But at least we've come to somesort of agreement.
And I think that's what's soimportant in society is to come
to some sort of consensus,because you can't have some
(11:59):
players and some teams saying,oh, we're going to do this and
other ones saying we're going todo that, and then the kid in
the middle feels like, well,this seems arbitrary.
And they're right, it's alittle bit arbitrary.
That kind of happened duringCOVID, right?
You saw one governmental agencysay one thing, one governmental
agency say another thing.
Things seemed arbitrary becausewe didn't have the science yet,
(12:22):
and so until you have the fullscience, you have to come to
some sort of agreement.
You can't say well, we don'tknow, so we can't protect our
kids.
That seems silly.
We know it's bad, we don't knowhow bad, so let's choose
something in between.
Like, a kid who gets hit 100times a day is probably not good
(12:42):
, right?
I think everyone would agree.
So a kid who gets hit a hundredtimes a day is probably not
good, right?
I think everyone would agree.
So a kid who gets 30 times aday is that bad, probably.
So we should come to some sortof agreement on what's not good
for our children and I think,doctor, I mean, do you?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I'm just writing questions down left and right?
You are this.
I mean, if anybody could listento the last 12 and a half
minutes of what Dr Cantor justsaid, he has just outlined
everything that we need to fix.
And it's not about, oh, sportsare bad.
I'm in my 60s, I still playrugby, all right.
(13:16):
It's about we know that somecussive hits aren't good, and so
, dr Cantor, why are we here in2025?
So, dr Cantor, why are we herein 2025?
We know that these hits are notthe overtime produce.
You know they produce horribleresults for athletes.
We focused on athletes, sinceyou know this was, you know,
(13:37):
identified in 2009 as CTE, andyou know we go down the whole
path there, but we have neverlooked at children.
And you know we go down thewhole path there, but we have
never looked at children.
And so and it also we focusedon concussions, so much that we
have yet in the last four years.
I remember when I challenged DrMcKee on why she did not look
at my son's brain from a damageperspective, vice, a CT
(13:58):
perspective, and she went backand we'll talk about the study
here in a little bit she said,oh my God, we found everything
that we had in the bookstructural damage, demyelination
, blood brain barrier, all kindsof stuff, right, and so you
know, why are we so, you know,delayed in considering this as
(14:19):
an issue, especially when itcomes to our kids?
And what do you think some ofthe first steps should be?
I mean, you're on the committee, you're in a position to affect
this, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah.
So you know, one reason I thinkthat we don't have a full
understanding of it and we don'tcome to an agreement is
probably because we're a littlebit uncomfortable.
We ourselves play sports or wehave family members who played
sports.
We think sports is a good idea.
We want our children to havethose benefits.
(14:50):
You know, when I was aneurology residency program
director, I would beinterviewing people who are
they're already doctors, sothey're MDs or DOs and they want
to become specialists inneurology.
And I'll tell you two thingsmade them higher up on the list.
It wasn't like how many papersyou wrote and it wasn't like how
much interest you had.
I assumed everybody was smartand everybody was interested.
(15:12):
If you played organized sportsand if you were in the military,
that told me that you were goodat teamwork and you were good
at leadership.
So there are definitely thingsthat are amazing about sports
and so we don't want to takethem away.
When you start thinking aboutNFL and then you start thinking
about, like, other professionalsports leagues and then college
(15:36):
sports leagues which arebecoming kind of more similar to
professional there's so muchmoney involved in it, yes, sir
Then you get down to high schooland high school, even though it
may not seem like there's moneyinvolved in it.
Yes, sir, then you get down tohigh school in high school, even
though it may not seem likethere's money involved in it.
There there is.
I remember, one kid I saw, andit wasn't for concussion, but it
was at.
It was in jacksonville, at theuniversity of florida in
(15:57):
jacksonville, and the kid would.
He was a teenager and everytime he wrestled he blacked out.
So I'm a.
So I said maybe you should stopwrestling.
His mom looked at me and saidthis is the way he's going to
college and I never saw themagain.
That was his ticket to college,was his scholarship, so there
(16:20):
was money tied into it.
Whether you want to say it wasmoney or education, it was money
tied into his education, and sothere's definitely that tied
into sports.
People who play sports arecompetitive by nature.
That's partially why they're sogood at sports, and so to take
someone out when they're notfeeling like they should be out
(16:40):
doesn't feel right to them.
They feel very resistant, andunless we as a society that's
why I say it has to be a unifiedfront If we have some adults
saying one thing, some adultssaying another thing.
Then the kids are going to belike, well, I'm going to go with
the one who says the thing Ibelieve in.
Instead, we have to just comedown hard.
We have to say these are therules.
(17:01):
We might change these rules,we'll ree.
Yeah, you have no symptoms.
Yeah, you look great.
Yeah, you might be theexception, but we have to have
some sort of rule so we don'tend up with situations like what
happened to your son.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And let's talk about some of those rules that we're
proposing as parents, as doctors.
The first of all is thereshould be no head contacting
until 14.
I don't care what the sport is,until the prefrontal cortex
starts developing, and that'sthe age.
Right there and you've alreadyoutlined how important this part
of the brain is I mean,everybody needs to start at the
(17:43):
same playing field, right?
I mean, like you said before,so if it's flag football, no
head soccer, no touch rugby, nocheck hockey, we are not only
establishing a baseline for thisbeginning of exposure, but we
have also eliminated exposureduring some of the most critical
developmental parts of achild's life.
(18:05):
Would you have any problem withthat position of saying look
until high school, okay, contact, know, contact sports should be
avoided by you know, children.
Is that a?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
rational question.
I actually think that makes alot of sense.
I understand where people wouldhave resistance to this.
People might say well, you know, that's not how we did it
before.
I got to tell you when I was akid we didn't ride bicycles.
When we rode bicycles, wedidn't wear helmets.
When we went skiing, we didn'twear helmets.
When we went skiing, we didn'twear helmets.
That was like crazy idea and nowwe know what we know now and so
(18:42):
do we really want to besmashing our kids heads into
each other or into other objects?
It's probably not a good idea.
Now, one of the things youbring up is obviously organized
sports.
You have to remember, kids areplaying sports in other ways.
Kids are playing sports afterschool, during school, at recess
, kids might still be playingtackle football or tackle other
(19:05):
sports or heading the ball.
I remember my nephew, who's nowjust turned 13.
He was disappointed when he wastold that if he wants to play
in the soccer league, he's notallowed to dive and he's not
allowed to head the ball, andhe's like well, what's the point
of playing?
Like to him, that's what hethought soccer was going to be
about.
As a father now with anine-year-old daughter who's not
(19:30):
afraid of the ball, so they puther as goalie in soccer, and I
watched those like heads cometowards her, towards her, and
you know, I watched the other uhfeet come towards her head when
she's running towards the ball.
I'm scared of the ball.
She might not be uh.
When I see her playing flagfootball though, yeah, sometimes
there's accidental hits.
You can't get around, you can'tget accidental hits.
(19:51):
I gotta tell you, kids fall offbicycles.
Unfortunately there'saccidental hits.
You can't get around.
You can't get around.
Accidental hits, I got to tellyou.
Kids fall off bicycles.
Unfortunately, there's anepidemic of domestic violence in
this country.
People get hit all the time.
People fall.
People are climbing and fall.
People hit their head in somany different ways Motor
vehicle accidents.
We can't stop everything, butwe can't stop rooting for our
(20:13):
kids to be hitting their heads,like we don't have to be there
as the parents rooting them onno, and so I think that is a
very reasonable idea.
And if you watch how the nfldoes it now, now they say well,
we don't want contact all thetime.
These are really valuableplayers, rarely be headed
contact all the time.
These are really valuableplayers.
They ought to be headed aheadall the time.
(20:34):
And so let's just do it on gameday.
Let's try to do less when it'snot game day.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You just brought up one of the most important
aspects of what we're trying todo with.
So we're writing informedconsent in Florida right now for
parents to be aware of theserisks in order to promote safer
sports.
Now, for parents to be aware ofthese risks in order to promote
safer sports.
And I mean what we're saying islike, look, if we just took the
contact out of practice, theNFL does not practice during the
(21:01):
season.
They do no contact drillsduring the season.
Some of the I know the IvyLeague colleges don't as well,
some other ones do.
And in the end, if you're aneducation facility or you're an
educational organization, youshould be probably focused more
on academics anyways than youknow sports.
But from even most collegelevel all the way down to your
Pop Warner guy, we practiceevery.
(21:25):
We have contact in everypractice and in high school it's
like every day of the week,like every day of the week.
If we could eliminate just theexposure and practice, we could
almost solve and this becameendemic, and not just the public
school systems but the PopWarner systems and all the other
crazy.
We're nuts about sports in thiscountry, but if we made the
(21:48):
lack of contact as a practice apriority.
We could almost resolve the CTEcrisis, because that's where it
all comes from.
It's the aggregate amount ofexposure, as you very well know,
and we're getting a lot ofpositive reception because
people are starting tounderstand that this is my child
.
And that woman who said this ismy kid's ticket to college, and
(22:10):
all that, this is your child'sbrain.
They only have one and you'regoing to be, and all that, this
is your child's brain.
They only have one and you'regoing to be taking care of your
child, if you know, when youallow them to play.
You know so much sport, so whatwould you?
I mean we, we feel that thiswould be positively received and
maybe it's just one day a week.
We'd have to, you know, look atsomething that would be
acceptable, you know, but it's,it's, it's letting.
(22:32):
I guess, once people understand,oh my god, the brain is that
the helmets don't protect thebrain.
I mean, the brain is stillgetting.
That's my child's brain.
It's still getting damaged,it's still good.
What are we going to do?
And we're and, and theseyounger generations are not as
sports crazy as our generationis or the ones that we brought
up.
I mean my, my, my children,kids aren't even really watching
(22:54):
these contacts.
Of course they're watchingother things right their screens
, but you know.
But do you think there is acompromise that we could reach,
where you know any any wherewhere where contact is allowed,
and say it is high school and up, that we could work to minimize
the exposure?
Because that is the true danger, that is the, when you dial the
(23:16):
risk in in the aggregate.
I mean, how many days do youspend in an actual game day,
vice?
How many days have you spentpracticing for that game day,
and where is most of theexposure coming from?
It's practice.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, I think the way to do it actually is.
So I used to be the vice chairof the american academy of
neurology's uh sports neurologysection and my chair at the time
was the chief medical officerof the ncaa, and so what I think
he has to look at.
I think what the ncaa and theneurologist there need to look
(23:53):
at is they need to say thesekids playing in high school, and
I got to tell you it's beforehigh school.
Also, I'm really worried aboutthose elementary kids.
They're doing it in a pathwaytowards college.
Yeah, very, very, very fewbecome elite athletes, but even
like just into the pathway tocollege.
We got to say, as NCAA, we gotto host these people and I think
(24:18):
we have to host, I think theyhave to host from all 50 states
because we all have rules,different rules, and we have to
all come to agreement.
We have to say that's it In ourstate, it's not happening.
And then they say it's in ourstate, it's not happening.
And I got to tell you you havesome of the big sports states
say that, so you have Floridaand Texas and then from a
(24:42):
population point of view, thebig four from population so are
New York and California, ifthose four big states say
anything.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I think you can start to see the rest of the country.
Follow along New York, york andin california I testified on
the ban, which was the wrong wayto go, but they're already
there, you know I live inflorida, you know tampa and so I
think to your point.
I mean we get, and when you,when I talk to college coaches,
they go.
We would love and even highschool coaches through a lesser
extent, they would love to seethese young men or children come
(25:16):
to them without years of badskills and without all the
injuries that they had fromplaying when they were too young
.
And I think that you know, Iknow that from the high school
perspective, you know that's thefirst time you have position
coaches.
You got an athletic trainer.
Usually you got a little bitmore support and they're like
look, we would love to get thesekids.
Because here's the point, and Ihave had yet to find anybody
(25:39):
disagree with me If you're goingto go to college or the NCAA or
to the NFL, you have what'scalled talent.
You have a raw, native talentthat nothing is going to stop
you, with with some goodcoaching, of going where you're
going to need to be.
And I get so upset with I'mhaving an issue with a NFL
(26:00):
player that's in a certainpolitical position in Florida
who is actively against anylegislation that addresses this
issue in contact sports becausehe feels that this is a way to
get in the college if you'refrom a challenged demographic of
this nation.
And I tell him, and I telleverybody, your child has a
(26:21):
better chance of becoming aneurologist, a lawyer or an
accountant than they do of beingin the NFL.
So why are you not focusing onthis?
And if they're going to get tocollege on their raw talent,
then we should be preventing asmuch exposure and practice as
possible so that their brain isstill intact when they get to
(26:44):
college, so they can get thatcareer that they're going to
live off of for the rest oftheir life.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I just thought, you know it's crazy absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I just uh, you know it's.
It's crazy, yeah, there's, andthere's two ways of doing it.
One is, as you say, withlegislation, and so you have
legislation in all the states,or even federal legislation,
although I think there's a stateissue, uh, the other way to do
it is to go you know, everystate now has its source of
committees and to justpromulgate these rules in every
single state.
But every state has to agree,because if you have, you know,
(27:18):
texas not doing it and Oklahomadoing it, well, the people in
Oklahoma aren't going to feellike it's very fair because
their kids might not get intothose big schools, and so you
really have to have us all sitdown together.
And who can have us all sitdown together?
I don't know that.
It should be the professional,you know, like the NFLs of the
world.
There's too much history,frankly.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I think the NCAA should step up to the plate, and
I think they would be and theyrely on the high schools and the
high schools rely on thesechildren to give them, you know,
good teams.
I think you know, when youstart talking about the value of
our children's future,everybody agrees and I don't
know why this is so hard.
(28:02):
We all agree that, oh my god,my children.
I don't want anything to impactmy child.
I mean, listen to what you justsaid about your daughter.
You know, just playing.
You know, when it comes to ourchildren, we do everything for
you know, when it comes to ourchildren, we do everything for
our children.
Yet when it comes to sports,for some reason their future,
their mental health, is not avariable because we've been
(28:22):
groomed.
I mean, I just watched an NFLshow the other day.
I don't watch a lot of themanymore, but they had a
Nickelodeon.
You know there's SpongeBob andPatrick on NFL actively
promoting.
I mean we are being groomed asa society that these sports are
safe.
And then you talk to most ofthe doctors that we deal with
(28:45):
that are not neurologists.
There was a study in the NewEngland Journal where I think 40
or 60 percent of them wouldrecommend football to parents
because they're not educated onthe impact of subconcussive
trauma.
So I think to your point, notonly could the NCAA play a.
Now I'm going to take a look atthis because we're getting
ready to form a council and I'dlike to invite you to consider a
(29:08):
position on the council onrepetitive brain trauma,
position on the council onrepetitive brain trauma and the,
but it's also, you know, the,the, the, the.
It's not, it's not just the NCAAcoming in and saying hey, we've
got to, we got to do this, it'salso getting the medical and
nursing and psychologicalcommunity on board with this
(29:29):
whole issue of subcussivetraumas that they're better
aware what, what can we do from?
You know you're a neurologistor you're a brain specialist.
How do we educate?
Like our you know our entiremedical and psychological
community are not educated inthe issue of subcussive trauma.
It's not trained in anyathletic training curriculum
that I have pulled down in.
It's not addressed in anynursing or medical curriculum.
(29:52):
As you know, an issue for thegeneral population to understand
.
Our psychological communitiesare absolutely uneducated in the
fact that when teenagers showup to them, that they could ask
a couple of questions to see ifthat psychological issue may be
attributed to an excessiveamount of subconcussive exposure
.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Which also aren't by sports, right, which are also by
domestic violence, once again.
So that's what they reallyshould be asking about is.
Shouldn't you be asking about,like, what you know in your
family situation was bad andscarred you for life?
They should be asking, like,what actual physical trauma did
you have to the head, even if itwasn't knocking down, even if
(30:34):
it wasn't knocking hard enoughfor people concussion?
I think most people, especiallypeople who watch your podcast,
know that.
You know, being knocked out hasnothing to do with a concussion
, right, so you don't have to beknocked out to have a
concussion.
People used to think that, right, and they used to think, oh,
it's the people who arecompletely or completely lost
consciousness, right, and theyused to think, oh, it's the
(30:55):
people who are completely lostconsciousness.
Now we know, no, it's thatperson who has that angular hit
at the right velocity, at theright speed, you know, at the
right force that's going to giveit to them.
Subconcussive hits are evenharder to tell, and so this idea
that there's lots of repetitivetrauma that can happen.
You know, I think we caneducate our professional
(31:15):
communities in a couple of ways.
One is at the medical schoollevel, but that I've got to tell
you is a far way, because ittakes a long time.
When you go through medicalschool, you still have another
three to eight or 16 years untilyou become a full-fledged
attending.
It's a long time.
There are things like continuingmedical education.
Frankly, there are many ways ofbeing in continuing medical
(31:38):
education and doctors alreadyhave a lot of different
requirements, Although, I've gotto tell you, a lot of states
have mandated the CMErequirements, mandated
continuing medical education.
So when we renew our Floridalicense, for example for
medicine, we have to do you knowthey alternate what the
requirements are, but we have todo like a safety module
(31:58):
including, you know, in additionto a large number of other
continuing medical educationwhere you can choose what you
want.
But we have to do.
You know HIV ones, the DA nowhas ones about pain, the DA now
has ones about pain.
The question is whether statescould maybe, and state medical
boards should maybe say well,there should be one about
subconcussive hits, aboutrepetitive hits, repetitive hits
(32:22):
to the brain, to our children,and that's important enough.
A subject at this time Doesn'tmean 20 years is going to be the
requirement.
This isn't something that hasto be forever, but maybe it
makes sense for the next fewyears, for the next few cycles,
to make that a requirement sothat everybody gets up to speed.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
That makes absolute sense.
Sir, there's no doubt that onthe education and awareness, we
have to do a lot.
They've gone through you knowbeing and we see this in the
(33:06):
military population all the timesoldiers that are mentally ill,
and yet we're just starting tocome around to the fact that
that mental illness was notcaused by just participating in
combat.
But combat has been about allthat exposure.
And are you familiar with thetraumatic encephalopathy
syndrome protocols that BobStern created back I think it
(33:29):
was like 2015,.
2017?
Yes, well, we're working hardto get those.
They were approved by NINDS in2019, but not validated for
actual exposure.
And here we are talking aboutfour simple questions that even
a parent could answer that couldindicate that we might have a
biological or physiologicalissue in addition to the
(33:52):
cognitive, psychological orbehavioral problem.
Is there a possibility?
We're pushing hard to see if wecould get those validated, but
we don't know what the processmight be.
And are, you know, activelylooking for, you know, a partner
to engage with on that?
Do you see those you knowcoming around?
(34:13):
Because right now, when we talkto doctors and nurses, they're
like well, I have no diagnosticcriteria.
You know, I have no, you knowtools or whatever you know.
And once we start recognizingthis is going to be a problem,
there's going to have to be somekind of you know.
Once we start recognizing thisis going to be a problem,
there's going to have to be somekind of you know protocol
established to you know, supportthe diagnosis.
What do you think could happenthere?
What are you seeing in thefield?
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Well.
So I think what has to happenis, you know, when you think
about how it happens from aresearch point of view, you have
a gold standard and then youhave a new measure that you try
to measure it against.
The problem with a lot ofthings that have to do with the
brain in general, not just aboutbrain injury, is there aren't
that many gold standards, right?
The brain is a mystery.
It's inside a hard box or askull and we think with it, and
(34:58):
it's hard.
When you think with something,it's hard to use that same tool
to try to understand what yourproblem is Like.
So, for example, when a kidgets hit with a concussion or a
subconcussive hits many of them,then what's going to happen is
they might just not be just assharp, not like tremendously
(35:21):
slow.
We're not talking about theselike extremes of people taking
their own lives and people say,oh, my kid's not going to do
that.
That's not going to happen tome.
It doesn't have to be thattheir grades can go from being
like in the even if they'regreat students can go from 97s
to 92s because of a head injury,and that may not seem like a
(35:44):
big deal to everybody, but I gotto tell you over time that
means that that person's hadinjury and it's better for
someone not to have brain injurythan to have brain injury, and
so I think we could talk aboutit offline.
But I think there are ways thatwe could, you know, have like a
(36:04):
consensus protocol test, youknow, test for questions, see
whether they can work in helpingto diagnose some people and
hoping maybe to make somediagnostic decisions, but also
some strategic decisions interms of what a kid should do
(36:25):
next.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And you bring up, you know, two good points in that.
One is that in my case, my son,I never noticed, even after all
, that brain trauma because hedidn't do something like you
would talk about.
There was no remarkable event.
He never got arrested, he neverwas in trouble.
He was always that kind, caring, generous human being.
But you know, his grades did godown a little bit and we like,
(36:49):
all right, because he was, hewas going to join the army, he
didn't want to go to college,like all right, man, you don't
need those A's, no more.
Ok, but it was his apathy that.
But it wasn't like I don't wantto do anything, it was like I
just don't want to.
I want to be in my dark room, Iwant to play with my video
games.
You know, it wasn't anythingthat we could put our finger on.
And that's what we want parentsto understand is that if your
(37:15):
child is being impacted by thesesports and you know, and if
you've got your child in contactsports every month of the year
and we'll talk about this asecond you are not, you are
failing your child because thebrain cannot take that much
abuse and continue to functionand a lot of this functionality
that you're going to come acrossis not noticeable, as Dr Cantor
just said, and so we really gotto get to that.
But the other point, doc, about, oh, we don't have a gold
(37:38):
standard Well, that's not goodenough anymore, because we know
this is a risk to our kids andwe have to do something.
And that's what we're saying onthe veteran side, it's like all
right, you know, we just can'tprescribe drugs and give therapy
anymore.
We've got the guys still 22 ofthem still killing themselves
every day.
We have to do somethingdifferent.
And here, when we have a partof the brain or the part of the
(38:00):
body that is so hard to assessand diagnose because it's not a
broken bone body that is so hardto assess and diagnose because
it's not a broken bone, when youfix this bone, this is the
brain, right, and unfortunately,have I now become so cognitive
or aware of how valuable it is?
We have to do something betterthan we are, because we're still
seeing suicides, we're stillseeing mental illness and we
(38:24):
know that this is a threat thiswhole time, from you know, say,
2015,.
Even when my son passed away,there was only two papers I
could find on subcussive trauma.
Now look up subcussive trauma,repetitive head impacts.
Look at all the research, allthe understanding, yet we're
doing this the same way, we'renot changing and our kids are
(38:44):
continuing to be impacted.
So just a couple points therethat I think we need to work
better on and we can talkoffline about those protocols.
But from your perspective,every time I talk to a
neurologist, say, your kids playcontact sports, they're the
first ones to go like are youcrazy?
And then you talk to peoplethat are not neurologists, that
(39:07):
are very, very successfuldoctors, are like, well, yeah, I
mean, you know the, the, youknow it's just the level of
awareness is just it needs to be.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
But that's a good.
That's a really good point,cause I do something that people
are surprised about.
So for many years I was aringside physician in the state
of Florida, so both with boxingand MMA and a lot of people were
surprised.
They said, wait, but you're aneurologist.
I said, yeah, I'm not promotingthem, but these sports are
going to happen.
And when you have twoconsenting adults and you can
(39:37):
say, well, maybe there was asystemic reason why that.
Whatever the point is, they'readults and they're making a
decision to play a sport wherethe goal is traumatic brain
injury right, that's the goal ofblood and yet I think it's
safer.
I think it's a good idea forpeople like neurologists to be
there.
I also thought it was a goodidea.
If I want to really understandbrain injury, I should see it
(40:00):
happen in real time and it'sgoing to happen, whether I'm
there or not.
So I might as well volunteer andbe a doctor at the ringside.
And so also my daughter and Ilook at her and I see her
playing flag football.
And you know those girls theyrun, but some of those are a
little bit rough and sometimesit ends up being a tackle almost
and I'm like, wait, should Inot?
(40:21):
Should I put her in a bubble?
I'm like yeah, but then she'snot.
Should I put her in a bubble?
I'm like yeah, but then she'snot exercising, then she's not
having those teammateexperiences.
I can't protect her fromeverything in the world.
Yeah, it would be better if shewas like a bubble somewhere and
she wouldn't be exposed toanything, but then something bad
would happen, you know.
So, no matter what we're goingto have risks, our point in life
(40:42):
as parents is not to get rid ofall risks for our children.
We can't do that.
We can't get rid of every timethey're going to have their
heart broken or every timethey're going to have a bad
grade or every time there'sgoing to be some bully.
But we can help soften the blow, we can help make it a little
bit more reasonable.
So you know, I'm not puttingher into a contact sport, but
(41:04):
I'm wanting to play a sportthat's adjacent to a contact
sport, absolutely.
So to me it gets many of thebenefits and almost all of the
benefits, and in fact I thinkthat's why the Olympics, that's
why I think they're moving tohaving fly football, because
it's really exciting to watch.
I mean, it's almost the sameexcitement I know we like to see
when two people hit each other.
(41:24):
On the other hand, when theyhit each other and they get hurt
, like what happened with Tua,everyone was like, oh my God,
look at what happened.
I'm like we pay money to watchit, so why are we so surprised
that it happened?
Like these things are going tohappen if we keep promoting it,
but if we slowly move away.
I think you're right aboutgenerational.
(41:45):
I think this idea I thinkthat's what the NFL is looking
at also is that throughout theyears, what happens is people
are less and less into thesecontact sports and that means
that the next generation mightbe okay with something else.
They might be okay with, youknow, on the computer sports or
flight football or other kindsof sports.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah, we talk to parents all the time.
Unfortunately, doc, I've got toget off and get ready for
another podcast.
But look, this has been amazing.
I mean you have this is.
I cannot thank you enough forthe time.
Your perspective on this isspot on.
We just want sports to be safer.
This is a risk to our children.
It can be prevented, it can bemitigated and we can still play
(42:28):
sports and they can still go onand be NFL players and guess
what?
At the end of their NFL career,they can enjoy their money
instead of all of my NFL buddieswho are disasters right now and
self-admittedly, they're justlike.
You know it's hard, and so wewant to change that.
We want to change it all.
I know it's hard, and so wewant to change that.
We want to change it all.
I cannot thank you enough foryour time, doc.
This has been an amazing show.
Love to have you come on again.
(42:49):
I'll definitely be reaching outto you on some of the amazing.
I didn't know half the stuffyou did on the consultation side
and that's so important outthere.
We'd love to work with you moreand more.
You know can't thank you enoughand if it, if just well, any
word for our viewers, especiallyour parents, that you know you
might just think would be aparting gift to them as you sign
(43:11):
off.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Well, I think you brought up a really good point
about the NFL players.
The ones we see on TV are thesportscasters afterwards and
we're like, look, they had agreat career, they made a lot of
money and now they're doing alot of good work on TV and
making more money.
They made a lot of money andnow they're doing a lot of good
work on TV and making more money.
What people don't see are allthose retired NFL players that
aren't on TV, all those onesthat I saw as part of that NFL
(43:32):
concussion settlement, that havethese terrible concussions and
terrible lives right now becauseof all the injuries that they
had, and so I think there's alot more happening.
I think, as parents, it's ourjob to kind of peel back the
onion and look at what reallyare we exposing our children to.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Absolutely, dr Cantor .
Thank you so much for coming onthe show.
I hope you have a very blessed2025.
God bless you and continue onyour journeys to help our kids
be safer, our athletes be safer,and we'll see you again on the
show, sir.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Thank you very much I appreciate it.
Hey folks, welcome back to another episode of
Broken Brains with me, your host, bruce Parkman.
Our show is focused on theissue of repetitive brain trauma
, particularly covering theissues of repetitive head
impacts from sports andrepetitive blast exposure in our
military veterans and what thisexposure is doing to the brains
of these kids, athletes andveterans, of what we can do as a
(00:32):
society to improve the safetyof sports and military service.
We look at researchers,scientists, patients, advocates
and brain experts across theissue and bring them here in the
podcast so that you, the viewer, are as formed as possible of
what is going on out there andwhat we can do, because this is
(00:55):
the largest preventable cause ofmental illness in this country
and we are all in a positionwhere we need to do better.
On our show today is anotherawesome guest, dr Cantor.
Dr Cantor is the PresidentEmeritus of the Florida Society
of Neurology and, after studyingliterary and computer science
(01:16):
at Penn, he enrolled a charterclass at Ben Gurion University
and Columbia University and,after completing his neurology
residency at Thomas JeffersonUniversity, he chose to remain
in the US and use his healthcareskills to help urban and rural
populations, as a director ofComprehensive MS Center,
(01:37):
university of Florida, inJacksonville.
Most recently he served as thedirector of the Division of
Neurology and as the inauguralneurology residency program
director at Florida AtlanticUniversity.
Go Owls, watch them in the NCAAchampionship there a couple of
years ago.
Dr Cantor, I mean, what anamazing resume to bring to the
(01:59):
show today.
We really appreciate it, and weknow that you're heavily
involved in the issue of courseneurology.
Now you are a neurologist, sir.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yes, I am, yes, I am, and I'm actually here in
Florida.
I chair the subcommittee onconcussion for the sports
medicine advisory committee ofthe Florida High School Athletic
Association.
So what I deal with every dayis how do we prevent and how do
we hopefully treat what arepreventable head injuries in our
(02:32):
children?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
That's an amazing well, I didn't know about that.
That's an amazing perspectivethat you have on youth sports.
Now we've talked to the FloridaHigh School Association about
the issue of repetitive headinjuries and what we have to do,
because if we could let's justdive into this if we could stop
contact in practice in footballor cross heading I mean heading
(02:54):
in soccer, rugby we couldeliminate massive amounts of the
exposure that's in the endhurting these kids.
I mean, how long have you beenin this position, sir, and what
is the progress that you'reseeing on understanding the
threat of repetitive ed impactsas a risk to our children and
what can we do to do a betterjob of working to improve the
(03:17):
levels of exposure?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
In early 2010, so about 2013,.
Florida was one of the statesthat now we have all 50 states,
but one of the states that saidwait a second, we have to do
something to stop concussions,and one way to do that is not to
get rid of sports, because, asyou say in your book, as you say
(03:40):
really eloquently, we can't dothat.
We're America, we're intosports.
Sports is great for many otherthings, but we got to do it
responsibly.
So we said, well, let's bringdown the threshold to take
someone out of play and then,when we take them out of play,
let's make the threshold higherto put them back into play, and
(04:00):
that was the basic idea.
Now, historically, what happenedin Florida was the legislation
first went up by a Florida Housemember who's actually a
physician, dr Renwart, and hetried making it that only MDs
and DOs so medical doctors andosteopathic doctors, would be
(04:20):
the ones to put patients backinto play.
So the kids would be taken outby the coach or by anybody, by
the trainer, by the coach, by aparent, but then they could only
go in by a medical doctor orosteopathic doctor.
The last day of legislativesession in Florida one of the
(04:44):
House members or senators he wasa chiropractor and he added on
chiropractic doctors tochiropractic physicians to be
the one.
So they killed the bill thatyear.
But I think what the FloridaHigh School Athletic Association
did really smartly is they sawthe writing on the wall and so
they set up a sports medicineadvisory committee, and in that
(05:05):
sports medicine advisorycommittee I became the chair of
the subcommittee on concussion,and so a year later they passed
legislation in Florida and nowthere's legislation in every
state.
But the legislation basicallysays that they have to set up a
committee and then thatcommittee has to make rules and
(05:27):
propagate rules, and so thecommittee has deferred a lot of
those rules, obviously to thesubcommittee on concussion.
You know, one of the issuesI've noticed in Florida is it's
a large, large state.
People forget that we're verylong but we're also very wide.
We're actually in two timezones.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
It takes forever to drive across the state.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
When you get all the way to Pensacola, you're in a
different time zone.
You're in central time zone,and so you need to be able to
have the same rules in a bigcity area Like I live in
southern Florida, between FortLauderdale and Boca, a place
called Parkland, whichunfortunately made the news in
2018.
(06:07):
And you have to have the samerules here as you do in the
panhandle of Florida.
Where there may not be an MD orDO or a chiropractor for
hundreds of miles, and youcertainly won't be a neurologist
for many hundreds of miles, andso we have to make the same
rules in all those places, andthe basic idea is to try to make
(06:29):
it very easy for someone tocome out of play and harder for
them to get back into play.
Now, with that said, what doesharder mean?
It means there's, as you'vetalked about before, there's the
graded or graduated return toplay, and so these international
ideas of return to play arebasically that at every step you
(06:53):
don't have symptoms for 24hours and you go on to the next
step.
The problem with that is youactually can go pretty fast.
You can go from having aconcussion, can go pretty fast.
You can go from being, you know, having a concussion, but
having no symptoms then for 24hours.
Then you go into light exercise, you know light, light movement
no, no, uh, no, no symptoms.
Then you go into the next oneand you have no symptoms and
(07:16):
eventually you're back atcontact sports, and the next
week weekend you might actuallybe back in a game.
You're sure that is maybe OK forNFL players, maybe it's not OK
for elementary school studentsand it's probably not OK for
many of the high school students, especially in the younger side
(07:37):
of it I mean the human brain asyou talk about.
Really well, if anyone outthere hasn't looked at your book
and read it, it's a very easyread, it's a very important read
and I think it's a book that Ithink gives tribute both to your
son's life but also to thescience of what's going on.
And when I read it, whatactually made me most amazed was
(08:01):
I was like but this stuff isobvious.
And then I was like maybe it'snot obvious to everyone, like
I'm gonna run this, what I dofor a living, like it's obvious
to me, but maybe it's notobvious to everyone.
And made me really open, evensomeone who's who stands out
there as an advocate, realizingthat there's still so many gaps
(08:21):
in kind of where we are.
And so what happens is, youknow, as the body gets bigger,
you know things start to developbetter.
You start to become better atrunning and you become better at
talking, become better ateverything.
But your brain, even though youdon't see it, it's still taking
times to form, and your humanbrain is not fully myelinated,
especially in what we call thefrontal cortex, the area that
(08:44):
makes the importantdecision-making.
We call it the executivefunctioning of the brain.
That doesn't happen until, likeyou're, in your early 20s.
Even after the time that weallow people to drink alcohol
and to vote and to serve in themilitary, that is still
developing.
So I'm not saying we shouldtake away all these things and
(09:04):
change what we decide a humanbeing is and what an adult is,
but we should realize thatthere's a reason why teenagers
are more impulsive.
There's a reason why with agecomes wisdom.
As you go, not only do you getnew experiences, your actual
brain is still forming.
You're still getting thatmyelin, it's still getting that
(09:26):
white matter covering, thatfatty white matter covering in
the front of the brain and alsoin other parts of the brain.
And so when you damage that,when it's still forming, that's
not good.
You can imagine when you have abone that's still growing and
you damage it, it's not going togrow as well, and the same
might be true for the humanbrain.
Now it is true that we haveamazing resilience as human
(09:48):
beings and we have this idea ofneuroplasticity and things can
make amazing kind of changes.
You can have people with onlyhalf their brain and they're
still able to function.
But that's not what we want.
We don't want to be in thatposition.
And you bring up another reallygood point, which is when we
think about baseball especially,we think about you know how
(10:11):
many pitch counts you have.
We don't want to damage theperson's shoulder, we don't
damage the person's elbow, wedon't have that for the head,
and we don't have that for thehead for several reasons.
One of those reasons is wedon't actually know.
So we don't know how many hitsis too much.
So when you're throwing abaseball and you throw it over
(10:33):
and over, eventually what you'regoing to do is you're going to
tear your ligaments and tendons,and it's not going to be good
for you.
But with the brain you get.
Even these hits that don't causea concussion.
No one notices that.
Even the person themselvesdoesn't notice, or their family,
but they're what we callsubconcussive hits, so almost at
(10:54):
the point of concussion, but alittle bit less.
And if you think it's hard todiagnose concussions or to
notice a concussion, it'sdefinitely hard to notice a
subconcussive hit.
We could, though, as a society,say well, a subconcussive hit
is a certain amount of force ata certain angle.
(11:14):
Okay, how do you measure that?
Well, that, we definitely havethe technology.
We have inserts inside helmets,we have the engineering that
makes it possible.
It's a little more expensive,obviously, than your regular
helmet, but we have thepossibility of knowing and
counting how many of those hitspeople can have.
And what we could do is we couldchoose an arbitrary number.
(11:36):
We could be wrong, we could sayyou're allowed to have this
many per season and this manyper lifetime of play, and we may
find out in the future thatwe're wrong, that maybe the
number is less or maybe thenumber is more.
But at least we've come to somesort of agreement.
And I think that's what's soimportant in society is to come
to some sort of consensus,because you can't have some
(11:59):
players and some teams saying,oh, we're going to do this and
other ones saying we're going todo that, and then the kid in
the middle feels like, well,this seems arbitrary.
And they're right, it's alittle bit arbitrary.
That kind of happened duringCOVID, right?
You saw one governmental agencysay one thing, one governmental
agency say another thing.
Things seemed arbitrary becausewe didn't have the science yet,
(12:22):
and so until you have the fullscience, you have to come to
some sort of agreement.
You can't say well, we don'tknow, so we can't protect our
kids.
That seems silly.
We know it's bad, we don't knowhow bad, so let's choose
something in between.
Like, a kid who gets hit 100times a day is probably not good
(12:42):
, right?
I think everyone would agree.
So a kid who gets hit a hundredtimes a day is probably not
good, right?
I think everyone would agree.
So a kid who gets 30 times aday is that bad, probably.
So we should come to some sortof agreement on what's not good
for our children and I think,doctor, I mean, do you?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I'm just writing questions down left and right?
You are this.
I mean, if anybody could listento the last 12 and a half
minutes of what Dr Cantor justsaid, he has just outlined
everything that we need to fix.
And it's not about, oh, sportsare bad.
I'm in my 60s, I still playrugby, all right.
(13:16):
It's about we know that somecussive hits aren't good, and so
, dr Cantor, why are we here in2025?
So, dr Cantor, why are we herein 2025?
We know that these hits are notthe overtime produce.
You know they produce horribleresults for athletes.
We focused on athletes, sinceyou know this was, you know,
(13:37):
identified in 2009 as CTE, andyou know we go down the whole
path there, but we have neverlooked at children.
And you know we go down thewhole path there, but we have
never looked at children.
And so and it also we focusedon concussions, so much that we
have yet in the last four years.
I remember when I challenged DrMcKee on why she did not look
at my son's brain from a damageperspective, vice, a CT
(13:58):
perspective, and she went backand we'll talk about the study
here in a little bit she said,oh my God, we found everything
that we had in the bookstructural damage, demyelination
, blood brain barrier, all kindsof stuff, right, and so you
know, why are we so, you know,delayed in considering this as
(14:19):
an issue, especially when itcomes to our kids?
And what do you think some ofthe first steps should be?
I mean, you're on the committee, you're in a position to affect
this, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah.
So you know, one reason I thinkthat we don't have a full
understanding of it and we don'tcome to an agreement is
probably because we're a littlebit uncomfortable.
We ourselves play sports or wehave family members who played
sports.
We think sports is a good idea.
We want our children to havethose benefits.
(14:50):
You know, when I was aneurology residency program
director, I would beinterviewing people who are
they're already doctors, sothey're MDs or DOs and they want
to become specialists inneurology.
And I'll tell you two thingsmade them higher up on the list.
It wasn't like how many papersyou wrote and it wasn't like how
much interest you had.
I assumed everybody was smartand everybody was interested.
(15:12):
If you played organized sportsand if you were in the military,
that told me that you were goodat teamwork and you were good
at leadership.
So there are definitely thingsthat are amazing about sports
and so we don't want to takethem away.
When you start thinking aboutNFL and then you start thinking
about, like, other professionalsports leagues and then college
(15:36):
sports leagues which arebecoming kind of more similar to
professional there's so muchmoney involved in it, yes, sir
Then you get down to high schooland high school, even though it
may not seem like there's moneyinvolved in it.
Yes, sir, then you get down tohigh school in high school, even
though it may not seem likethere's money involved in it.
There there is.
I remember, one kid I saw, andit wasn't for concussion, but it
was at.
It was in jacksonville, at theuniversity of florida in
(15:57):
jacksonville, and the kid would.
He was a teenager and everytime he wrestled he blacked out.
So I'm a.
So I said maybe you should stopwrestling.
His mom looked at me and saidthis is the way he's going to
college and I never saw themagain.
That was his ticket to college,was his scholarship, so there
(16:20):
was money tied into it.
Whether you want to say it wasmoney or education, it was money
tied into his education, and sothere's definitely that tied
into sports.
People who play sports arecompetitive by nature.
That's partially why they're sogood at sports, and so to take
someone out when they're notfeeling like they should be out
(16:40):
doesn't feel right to them.
They feel very resistant, andunless we as a society that's
why I say it has to be a unifiedfront If we have some adults
saying one thing, some adultssaying another thing.
Then the kids are going to belike, well, I'm going to go with
the one who says the thing Ibelieve in.
Instead, we have to just comedown hard.
We have to say these are therules.
(17:01):
We might change these rules,we'll ree.
Yeah, you have no symptoms.
Yeah, you look great.
Yeah, you might be theexception, but we have to have
some sort of rule so we don'tend up with situations like what
happened to your son.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And let's talk about some of those rules that we're
proposing as parents, as doctors.
The first of all is thereshould be no head contacting
until 14.
I don't care what the sport is,until the prefrontal cortex
starts developing, and that'sthe age.
Right there and you've alreadyoutlined how important this part
of the brain is I mean,everybody needs to start at the
(17:43):
same playing field, right?
I mean, like you said before,so if it's flag football, no
head soccer, no touch rugby, nocheck hockey, we are not only
establishing a baseline for thisbeginning of exposure, but we
have also eliminated exposureduring some of the most critical
developmental parts of achild's life.
(18:05):
Would you have any problem withthat position of saying look
until high school, okay, contact, know, contact sports should be
avoided by you know, children.
Is that a?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
rational question.
I actually think that makes alot of sense.
I understand where people wouldhave resistance to this.
People might say well, you know, that's not how we did it
before.
I got to tell you when I was akid we didn't ride bicycles.
When we rode bicycles, wedidn't wear helmets.
When we went skiing, we didn'twear helmets.
When we went skiing, we didn'twear helmets.
That was like crazy idea and nowwe know what we know now and so
(18:42):
do we really want to besmashing our kids heads into
each other or into other objects?
It's probably not a good idea.
Now, one of the things youbring up is obviously organized
sports.
You have to remember, kids areplaying sports in other ways.
Kids are playing sports afterschool, during school, at recess
, kids might still be playingtackle football or tackle other
(19:05):
sports or heading the ball.
I remember my nephew, who's nowjust turned 13.
He was disappointed when he wastold that if he wants to play
in the soccer league, he's notallowed to dive and he's not
allowed to head the ball, andhe's like well, what's the point
of playing?
Like to him, that's what hethought soccer was going to be
about.
As a father now with anine-year-old daughter who's not
(19:30):
afraid of the ball, so they puther as goalie in soccer, and I
watched those like heads cometowards her, towards her, and
you know, I watched the other uhfeet come towards her head when
she's running towards the ball.
I'm scared of the ball.
She might not be uh.
When I see her playing flagfootball though, yeah, sometimes
there's accidental hits.
You can't get around, you can'tget accidental hits.
(19:51):
I gotta tell you, kids fall offbicycles.
Unfortunately there'saccidental hits.
You can't get around.
You can't get around.
Accidental hits, I got to tellyou.
Kids fall off bicycles.
Unfortunately, there's anepidemic of domestic violence in
this country.
People get hit all the time.
People fall.
People are climbing and fall.
People hit their head in somany different ways Motor
vehicle accidents.
We can't stop everything, butwe can't stop rooting for our
(20:13):
kids to be hitting their heads,like we don't have to be there
as the parents rooting them onno, and so I think that is a
very reasonable idea.
And if you watch how the nfldoes it now, now they say well,
we don't want contact all thetime.
These are really valuableplayers, rarely be headed
contact all the time.
These are really valuableplayers.
They ought to be headed aheadall the time.
(20:34):
And so let's just do it on gameday.
Let's try to do less when it'snot game day.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You just brought up one of the most important
aspects of what we're trying todo with.
So we're writing informedconsent in Florida right now for
parents to be aware of theserisks in order to promote safer
sports.
Now, for parents to be aware ofthese risks in order to promote
safer sports.
And I mean what we're saying islike, look, if we just took the
contact out of practice, theNFL does not practice during the
(21:01):
season.
They do no contact drillsduring the season.
Some of the I know the IvyLeague colleges don't as well,
some other ones do.
And in the end, if you're aneducation facility or you're an
educational organization, youshould be probably focused more
on academics anyways than youknow sports.
But from even most collegelevel all the way down to your
Pop Warner guy, we practiceevery.
(21:25):
We have contact in everypractice and in high school it's
like every day of the week,like every day of the week.
If we could eliminate just theexposure and practice, we could
almost solve and this becameendemic, and not just the public
school systems but the PopWarner systems and all the other
crazy.
We're nuts about sports in thiscountry, but if we made the
(21:48):
lack of contact as a practice apriority.
We could almost resolve the CTEcrisis, because that's where it
all comes from.
It's the aggregate amount ofexposure, as you very well know,
and we're getting a lot ofpositive reception because
people are starting tounderstand that this is my child
.
And that woman who said this ismy kid's ticket to college, and
(22:10):
all that, this is your child'sbrain.
They only have one and you'regoing to be, and all that, this
is your child's brain.
They only have one and you'regoing to be taking care of your
child, if you know, when youallow them to play.
You know so much sport, so whatwould you?
I mean we, we feel that thiswould be positively received and
maybe it's just one day a week.
We'd have to, you know, look atsomething that would be
acceptable, you know, but it's,it's, it's letting.
(22:32):
I guess, once people understand,oh my god, the brain is that
the helmets don't protect thebrain.
I mean, the brain is stillgetting.
That's my child's brain.
It's still getting damaged,it's still good.
What are we going to do?
And we're and, and theseyounger generations are not as
sports crazy as our generationis or the ones that we brought
up.
I mean my, my, my children,kids aren't even really watching
(22:54):
these contacts.
Of course they're watchingother things right their screens
, but you know.
But do you think there is acompromise that we could reach,
where you know any any wherewhere where contact is allowed,
and say it is high school and up, that we could work to minimize
the exposure?
Because that is the true danger, that is the, when you dial the
(23:16):
risk in in the aggregate.
I mean, how many days do youspend in an actual game day,
vice?
How many days have you spentpracticing for that game day,
and where is most of theexposure coming from?
It's practice.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, I think the way to do it actually is.
So I used to be the vice chairof the american academy of
neurology's uh sports neurologysection and my chair at the time
was the chief medical officerof the ncaa, and so what I think
he has to look at.
I think what the ncaa and theneurologist there need to look
(23:53):
at is they need to say thesekids playing in high school, and
I got to tell you it's beforehigh school.
Also, I'm really worried aboutthose elementary kids.
They're doing it in a pathwaytowards college.
Yeah, very, very, very fewbecome elite athletes, but even
like just into the pathway tocollege.
We got to say, as NCAA, we gotto host these people and I think
(24:18):
we have to host, I think theyhave to host from all 50 states
because we all have rules,different rules, and we have to
all come to agreement.
We have to say that's it In ourstate, it's not happening.
And then they say it's in ourstate, it's not happening.
And I got to tell you you havesome of the big sports states
say that, so you have Floridaand Texas and then from a
(24:42):
population point of view, thebig four from population so are
New York and California, ifthose four big states say
anything.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I think you can start to see the rest of the country.
Follow along New York, york andin california I testified on
the ban, which was the wrong wayto go, but they're already
there, you know I live inflorida, you know tampa and so I
think to your point.
I mean we get, and when you,when I talk to college coaches,
they go.
We would love and even highschool coaches through a lesser
extent, they would love to seethese young men or children come
(25:16):
to them without years of badskills and without all the
injuries that they had fromplaying when they were too young
.
And I think that you know, Iknow that from the high school
perspective, you know that's thefirst time you have position
coaches.
You got an athletic trainer.
Usually you got a little bitmore support and they're like
look, we would love to get thesekids.
Because here's the point, and Ihave had yet to find anybody
(25:39):
disagree with me If you're goingto go to college or the NCAA or
to the NFL, you have what'scalled talent.
You have a raw, native talentthat nothing is going to stop
you, with with some goodcoaching, of going where you're
going to need to be.
And I get so upset with I'mhaving an issue with a NFL
(26:00):
player that's in a certainpolitical position in Florida
who is actively against anylegislation that addresses this
issue in contact sports becausehe feels that this is a way to
get in the college if you'refrom a challenged demographic of
this nation.
And I tell him, and I telleverybody, your child has a
(26:21):
better chance of becoming aneurologist, a lawyer or an
accountant than they do of beingin the NFL.
So why are you not focusing onthis?
And if they're going to get tocollege on their raw talent,
then we should be preventing asmuch exposure and practice as
possible so that their brain isstill intact when they get to
(26:44):
college, so they can get thatcareer that they're going to
live off of for the rest oftheir life.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I just thought, you know it's crazy absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I just uh, you know it's.
It's crazy, yeah, there's, andthere's two ways of doing it.
One is, as you say, withlegislation, and so you have
legislation in all the states,or even federal legislation,
although I think there's a stateissue, uh, the other way to do
it is to go you know, everystate now has its source of
committees and to justpromulgate these rules in every
single state.
But every state has to agree,because if you have, you know,
(27:18):
texas not doing it and Oklahomadoing it, well, the people in
Oklahoma aren't going to feellike it's very fair because
their kids might not get intothose big schools, and so you
really have to have us all sitdown together.
And who can have us all sitdown together?
I don't know that.
It should be the professional,you know, like the NFLs of the
world.
There's too much history,frankly.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I think the NCAA should step up to the plate, and
I think they would be and theyrely on the high schools and the
high schools rely on thesechildren to give them, you know,
good teams.
I think you know, when youstart talking about the value of
our children's future,everybody agrees and I don't
know why this is so hard.
(28:02):
We all agree that, oh my god,my children.
I don't want anything to impactmy child.
I mean, listen to what you justsaid about your daughter.
You know, just playing.
You know, when it comes to ourchildren, we do everything for
you know, when it comes to ourchildren, we do everything for
our children.
Yet when it comes to sports,for some reason their future,
their mental health, is not avariable because we've been
(28:22):
groomed.
I mean, I just watched an NFLshow the other day.
I don't watch a lot of themanymore, but they had a
Nickelodeon.
You know there's SpongeBob andPatrick on NFL actively
promoting.
I mean we are being groomed asa society that these sports are
safe.
And then you talk to most ofthe doctors that we deal with
(28:45):
that are not neurologists.
There was a study in the NewEngland Journal where I think 40
or 60 percent of them wouldrecommend football to parents
because they're not educated onthe impact of subconcussive
trauma.
So I think to your point, notonly could the NCAA play a.
Now I'm going to take a look atthis because we're getting
ready to form a council and I'dlike to invite you to consider a
(29:08):
position on the council onrepetitive brain trauma,
position on the council onrepetitive brain trauma and the,
but it's also, you know, the,the, the, the.
It's not, it's not just the NCAAcoming in and saying hey, we've
got to, we got to do this, it'salso getting the medical and
nursing and psychologicalcommunity on board with this
(29:29):
whole issue of subcussivetraumas that they're better
aware what, what can we do from?
You know you're a neurologistor you're a brain specialist.
How do we educate?
Like our you know our entiremedical and psychological
community are not educated inthe issue of subcussive trauma.
It's not trained in anyathletic training curriculum
that I have pulled down in.
It's not addressed in anynursing or medical curriculum.
(29:52):
As you know, an issue for thegeneral population to understand
.
Our psychological communitiesare absolutely uneducated in the
fact that when teenagers showup to them, that they could ask
a couple of questions to see ifthat psychological issue may be
attributed to an excessiveamount of subconcussive exposure
.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Which also aren't by sports, right, which are also by
domestic violence, once again.
So that's what they reallyshould be asking about is.
Shouldn't you be asking about,like, what you know in your
family situation was bad andscarred you for life?
They should be asking, like,what actual physical trauma did
you have to the head, even if itwasn't knocking down, even if
(30:34):
it wasn't knocking hard enoughfor people concussion?
I think most people, especiallypeople who watch your podcast,
know that.
You know, being knocked out hasnothing to do with a concussion
, right, so you don't have to beknocked out to have a
concussion.
People used to think that, right, and they used to think, oh,
it's the people who arecompletely or completely lost
consciousness, right, and theyused to think, oh, it's the
(30:55):
people who are completely lostconsciousness.
Now we know, no, it's thatperson who has that angular hit
at the right velocity, at theright speed, you know, at the
right force that's going to giveit to them.
Subconcussive hits are evenharder to tell, and so this idea
that there's lots of repetitivetrauma that can happen.
You know, I think we caneducate our professional
(31:15):
communities in a couple of ways.
One is at the medical schoollevel, but that I've got to tell
you is a far way, because ittakes a long time.
When you go through medicalschool, you still have another
three to eight or 16 years untilyou become a full-fledged
attending.
It's a long time.
There are things like continuingmedical education.
Frankly, there are many ways ofbeing in continuing medical
(31:38):
education and doctors alreadyhave a lot of different
requirements, Although, I've gotto tell you, a lot of states
have mandated the CMErequirements, mandated
continuing medical education.
So when we renew our Floridalicense, for example for
medicine, we have to do you knowthey alternate what the
requirements are, but we have todo like a safety module
(31:58):
including, you know, in additionto a large number of other
continuing medical educationwhere you can choose what you
want.
But we have to do.
You know HIV ones, the DA nowhas ones about pain, the DA now
has ones about pain.
The question is whether statescould maybe, and state medical
boards should maybe say well,there should be one about
subconcussive hits, aboutrepetitive hits, repetitive hits
(32:22):
to the brain, to our children,and that's important enough.
A subject at this time Doesn'tmean 20 years is going to be the
requirement.
This isn't something that hasto be forever, but maybe it
makes sense for the next fewyears, for the next few cycles,
to make that a requirement sothat everybody gets up to speed.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
That makes absolute sense.
Sir, there's no doubt that onthe education and awareness, we
have to do a lot.
They've gone through you knowbeing and we see this in the
(33:06):
military population all the timesoldiers that are mentally ill,
and yet we're just starting tocome around to the fact that
that mental illness was notcaused by just participating in
combat.
But combat has been about allthat exposure.
And are you familiar with thetraumatic encephalopathy
syndrome protocols that BobStern created back I think it
(33:29):
was like 2015,.
2017?
Yes, well, we're working hardto get those.
They were approved by NINDS in2019, but not validated for
actual exposure.
And here we are talking aboutfour simple questions that even
a parent could answer that couldindicate that we might have a
biological or physiologicalissue in addition to the
(33:52):
cognitive, psychological orbehavioral problem.
Is there a possibility?
We're pushing hard to see if wecould get those validated, but
we don't know what the processmight be.
And are, you know, activelylooking for, you know, a partner
to engage with on that?
Do you see those you knowcoming around?
(34:13):
Because right now, when we talkto doctors and nurses, they're
like well, I have no diagnosticcriteria.
You know, I have no, you knowtools or whatever you know.
And once we start recognizingthis is going to be a problem,
there's going to have to be somekind of you know.
Once we start recognizing thisis going to be a problem,
there's going to have to be somekind of you know protocol
established to you know, supportthe diagnosis.
What do you think could happenthere?
What are you seeing in thefield?
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Well.
So I think what has to happenis, you know, when you think
about how it happens from aresearch point of view, you have
a gold standard and then youhave a new measure that you try
to measure it against.
The problem with a lot ofthings that have to do with the
brain in general, not just aboutbrain injury, is there aren't
that many gold standards, right?
The brain is a mystery.
It's inside a hard box or askull and we think with it, and
(34:58):
it's hard.
When you think with something,it's hard to use that same tool
to try to understand what yourproblem is Like.
So, for example, when a kidgets hit with a concussion or a
subconcussive hits many of them,then what's going to happen is
they might just not be just assharp, not like tremendously
(35:21):
slow.
We're not talking about theselike extremes of people taking
their own lives and people say,oh, my kid's not going to do
that.
That's not going to happen tome.
It doesn't have to be thattheir grades can go from being
like in the even if they'regreat students can go from 97s
to 92s because of a head injury,and that may not seem like a
(35:44):
big deal to everybody, but I gotto tell you over time that
means that that person's hadinjury and it's better for
someone not to have brain injurythan to have brain injury, and
so I think we could talk aboutit offline.
But I think there are ways thatwe could, you know, have like a
(36:04):
consensus protocol test, youknow, test for questions, see
whether they can work in helpingto diagnose some people and
hoping maybe to make somediagnostic decisions, but also
some strategic decisions interms of what a kid should do
(36:25):
next.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
And you bring up, you know, two good points in that.
One is that in my case, my son,I never noticed, even after all
, that brain trauma because hedidn't do something like you
would talk about.
There was no remarkable event.
He never got arrested, he neverwas in trouble.
He was always that kind, caring, generous human being.
But you know, his grades did godown a little bit and we like,
(36:49):
all right, because he was, hewas going to join the army, he
didn't want to go to college,like all right, man, you don't
need those A's, no more.
Ok, but it was his apathy that.
But it wasn't like I don't wantto do anything, it was like I
just don't want to.
I want to be in my dark room, Iwant to play with my video
games.
You know, it wasn't anythingthat we could put our finger on.
And that's what we want parentsto understand is that if your
(37:15):
child is being impacted by thesesports and you know, and if
you've got your child in contactsports every month of the year
and we'll talk about this asecond you are not, you are
failing your child because thebrain cannot take that much
abuse and continue to functionand a lot of this functionality
that you're going to come acrossis not noticeable, as Dr Cantor
just said, and so we really gotto get to that.
But the other point, doc, about, oh, we don't have a gold
(37:38):
standard Well, that's not goodenough anymore, because we know
this is a risk to our kids andwe have to do something.
And that's what we're saying onthe veteran side, it's like all
right, you know, we just can'tprescribe drugs and give therapy
anymore.
We've got the guys still 22 ofthem still killing themselves
every day.
We have to do somethingdifferent.
And here, when we have a partof the brain or the part of the
(38:00):
body that is so hard to assessand diagnose because it's not a
broken bone body that is so hardto assess and diagnose because
it's not a broken bone, when youfix this bone, this is the
brain, right, and unfortunately,have I now become so cognitive
or aware of how valuable it is?
We have to do something betterthan we are, because we're still
seeing suicides, we're stillseeing mental illness and we
(38:24):
know that this is a threat thiswhole time, from you know, say,
2015,.
Even when my son passed away,there was only two papers I
could find on subcussive trauma.
Now look up subcussive trauma,repetitive head impacts.
Look at all the research, allthe understanding, yet we're
doing this the same way, we'renot changing and our kids are
(38:44):
continuing to be impacted.
So just a couple points therethat I think we need to work
better on and we can talkoffline about those protocols.
But from your perspective,every time I talk to a
neurologist, say, your kids playcontact sports, they're the
first ones to go like are youcrazy?
And then you talk to peoplethat are not neurologists, that
(39:07):
are very, very successfuldoctors, are like, well, yeah, I
mean, you know the, the, youknow it's just the level of
awareness is just it needs to be.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
But that's a good.
That's a really good point,cause I do something that people
are surprised about.
So for many years I was aringside physician in the state
of Florida, so both with boxingand MMA and a lot of people were
surprised.
They said, wait, but you're aneurologist.
I said, yeah, I'm not promotingthem, but these sports are
going to happen.
And when you have twoconsenting adults and you can
(39:37):
say, well, maybe there was asystemic reason why that.
Whatever the point is, they'readults and they're making a
decision to play a sport wherethe goal is traumatic brain
injury right, that's the goal ofblood and yet I think it's
safer.
I think it's a good idea forpeople like neurologists to be
there.
I also thought it was a goodidea.
If I want to really understandbrain injury, I should see it
(40:00):
happen in real time and it'sgoing to happen, whether I'm
there or not.
So I might as well volunteer andbe a doctor at the ringside.
And so also my daughter and Ilook at her and I see her
playing flag football.
And you know those girls theyrun, but some of those are a
little bit rough and sometimesit ends up being a tackle almost
and I'm like, wait, should Inot?
(40:21):
Should I put her in a bubble?
I'm like yeah, but then she'snot.
Should I put her in a bubble?
I'm like yeah, but then she'snot exercising, then she's not
having those teammateexperiences.
I can't protect her fromeverything in the world.
Yeah, it would be better if shewas like a bubble somewhere and
she wouldn't be exposed toanything, but then something bad
would happen, you know.
So, no matter what we're goingto have risks, our point in life
(40:42):
as parents is not to get rid ofall risks for our children.
We can't do that.
We can't get rid of every timethey're going to have their
heart broken or every timethey're going to have a bad
grade or every time there'sgoing to be some bully.
But we can help soften the blow, we can help make it a little
bit more reasonable.
So you know, I'm not puttingher into a contact sport, but
(41:04):
I'm wanting to play a sportthat's adjacent to a contact
sport, absolutely.
So to me it gets many of thebenefits and almost all of the
benefits, and in fact I thinkthat's why the Olympics, that's
why I think they're moving tohaving fly football, because
it's really exciting to watch.
I mean, it's almost the sameexcitement I know we like to see
when two people hit each other.
(41:24):
On the other hand, when theyhit each other and they get hurt
, like what happened with Tua,everyone was like, oh my God,
look at what happened.
I'm like we pay money to watchit, so why are we so surprised
that it happened?
Like these things are going tohappen if we keep promoting it,
but if we slowly move away.
I think you're right aboutgenerational.
(41:45):
I think this idea I thinkthat's what the NFL is looking
at also is that throughout theyears, what happens is people
are less and less into thesecontact sports and that means
that the next generation mightbe okay with something else.
They might be okay with, youknow, on the computer sports or
flight football or other kindsof sports.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Yeah, we talk to parents all the time.
Unfortunately, doc, I've got toget off and get ready for
another podcast.
But look, this has been amazing.
I mean you have this is.
I cannot thank you enough forthe time.
Your perspective on this isspot on.
We just want sports to be safer.
This is a risk to our children.
It can be prevented, it can bemitigated and we can still play
(42:28):
sports and they can still go onand be NFL players and guess
what?
At the end of their NFL career,they can enjoy their money
instead of all of my NFL buddieswho are disasters right now and
self-admittedly, they're justlike.
You know it's hard, and so wewant to change that.
We want to change it all.
I know it's hard, and so wewant to change that.
We want to change it all.
I cannot thank you enough foryour time, doc.
This has been an amazing show.
Love to have you come on again.
(42:49):
I'll definitely be reaching outto you on some of the amazing.
I didn't know half the stuffyou did on the consultation side
and that's so important outthere.
We'd love to work with you moreand more.
You know can't thank you enoughand if it, if just well, any
word for our viewers, especiallyour parents, that you know you
might just think would be aparting gift to them as you sign
(43:11):
off.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Well, I think you brought up a really good point
about the NFL players.
The ones we see on TV are thesportscasters afterwards and
we're like, look, they had agreat career, they made a lot of
money and now they're doing alot of good work on TV and
making more money.
They made a lot of money andnow they're doing a lot of good
work on TV and making more money.
What people don't see are allthose retired NFL players that
aren't on TV, all those onesthat I saw as part of that NFL
(43:32):
concussion settlement, that havethese terrible concussions and
terrible lives right now becauseof all the injuries that they
had, and so I think there's alot more happening.
I think, as parents, it's ourjob to kind of peel back the
onion and look at what reallyare we exposing our children to.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Absolutely, dr Cantor .
Thank you so much for coming onthe show.
I hope you have a very blessed2025.
God bless you and continue onyour journeys to help our kids
be safer, our athletes be safer,and we'll see you again on the
show, sir.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Thank you very much I appreciate it.
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