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Republicans, NFL push back

Challenge reports on handling of grant for concussion research

Congressional Republicans and the NFL are pushing back against the narrative reported by ESPN last year, and by congressional Democrats in May, that the NFL and its outside medical advisers interfered with a National Institutes of Health grant to a doctor long critical of the league’s concussion approach.

And they are focusing their attention in part on a key NIH official, Dr. Walter Koroshetz, who was a central player in the earlier reports that cast the league in an unfavorable light.

In May Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone (below) referred to a report that he said confirmed that the NFL tried to steer National Institutes of Health funding for concussion research away from a doctor who has been critical of the league.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES (2)
This is a process issue at NIH, not necessarily an NFL one, said a House Energy and Commerce Committee aide, who requested not to be named or to be directly quoted in return for discussing a recent GOP committee letter that asked a federal investigator to examine the grant controversy. The NFL supports that request. By describing the controversy over the grant as process, that appears to direct the blame to the NIH officials in charge.

The aide added it was hoped

that NIH is being an objective partner with the NFL, and called a tweet from Koroshetz on Sept. 14 about the NFL snarky.

That tweet, in response to the NFL announcing a new $100 million concussion research initiative, read, “REnewed Commitment to Safety - NFL Health & Safety could be a game changer!” The aide, and a source at the NFL, viewed that as not heartfelt in part because of the grant controversy.

The NFL source even speculated the “r” and “e” in “renewed” were upper case as a knock against Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, the head of the NFL’s head, neck and spine committee and who Koroshetz said tried to get him to change the grant recipient. Whatever the case, that an NFL source would immediately jump to the conclusion that the tweet was sending a coded attack against perhaps the league’s top outside medical adviser underscores the concerns some in the league have about the NIH official.

Days after the tweet, Koroshetz retweeted the following, “In 2015, the 5 most valuable @NFL teams were worth $15.5 bil or 2.7 times funding of @NIH.”

Koroshetz, the director of the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and who plays a key part in the allocation of the NFL grant money, referred questions to NIH communications. In a statement, that office wrote, “NIH will fully cooperate should the Office of the Inspector General determine a further review of NFL’s involvement in NIH CTE research is required beyond the Congressional review already conducted. It is clear from NIH’s decision to fund the CTE grant that scored the best in NIH peer review, in spite of concerns raised by the NFL, that NIH was not influenced by the NFL. NIH’s interest is in the science and ensuring the integrity of the peer review process.”

A source close to NIH rejected the idea that Koroshetz was trying to be snarky in his tweet, and said the NFL’s long history of obfuscating around concussions should be considered in the context of the entire discussion.

Privately, NFL sources have grumbled about Koroshetz, arguing that the interference the league stands accused of was, in their belief, simply the back-and-forth between NIH officials and NFL medical advisers and executives. That is the point made by the GOP House Energy and Commerce letter, and by the committee aide.

The May House Energy and Commerce minority report, and the ESPN December story that sparked the congressional interest, alleged that the NFL had interfered with its “unrestricted” grant to the NIH because it would go to Dr. Robert Stern at Boston University, a frequent critic of the NFL. This caused the NIH to reject the NFL funding and finance the study itself.

In a May 23 news release announcing the minority report, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J.,the ranking member on the committee, said, “This investigation confirms the NFL inappropriately attempted to use its unrestricted gift as leverage to steer funding away from one of its critics.”

But in a Sept. 16 memo to NFL owners soon after the GOP staff letter emerged, the NFL’s senior vice president of player health and safety, Jeff Miller, wrote of a potential Department of Health and Human Services inspector general probe, “We are confident that an objective review will confirm that the league and its medical advisors conducted themselves in an entirely proper way at all times.

“The leadership you have demonstrated through the $30 million grant to the … NIH and this week’s announcement of the $100 million Play Smart Play Safe initiative are a testament to the NFL’s clear commitment to advancing science, the understanding of concussion, and improving the health and safety of our sport.”

The NFL in 2012 awarded the $30 million to NIH for concussion research, and four grants had been made from that money without fuss. It was the $16 million awarded to Stern that ignited a storm. Under terms of the NFL/NIH agreement, the NFL is to have no role in selecting the award recipients. But when the NFL learned Stern’s group won, it objected in emails from league officials. That appears to be a violation of the grant’s terms, and is the main point of the case against the league.

The committee aide said that ultimately the NIH could have ignored the NFL and used the grant for Stern. Instead, a months-long exchange in 2015 occurred among the NFL, league-affiliated doctors and NIH officials, resulting in the NIH deciding to use taxpayer money for the Stern grant. Shortly after, the ESPN story appeared.

The committee aide said one issue that the House would like the inspector general to explore is how nonpublic information about the grant became public.

The House aide did not dispute all elements of the May Democratic staff report. The aide agreed that Stern’s study met the criteria of the grant, despite objections from Ellenbogen and others at the NFL. Ellenbogen was cited in the May report for allegedly telling Koroshetz that he would recommend against the Stern grant. Ellenbogen has publicly denied this and said he was never contacted by the author of the May report.

A spokesman for the minority on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said he would try to make an aide available to speak without attribution, but did not reply by deadline or answer questions that were emailed.

The House GOP did interview Ellenbogen and several of his colleagues on the head, neck and spine committee, but did not interview Koroshetz. The aide said the GOP 21-page letter to the inspector general was based on available information, other than the doctors’ interviews to give them the courtesy they had apparently not been afforded previously. It is up to the inspector general now whether to conduct an investigation and interview NIH officials, said the aide.

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