WASHINGTON (AP) – National Football League officials improperly sought to influence a government study on the link between football and brain disease, according to a senior House Democrat in a report issued Monday.
New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone says the league tried to strong-arm the National Institutes of Health into taking the project away from a researcher that the NFL feared was biased.
The NFL had agreed to donate $30 million to the NIH to fund brain research but backed out after the institutes refused to take a $16 million grant away from prominent Boston University researcher Robert Stern. He’s a leading expert on the link between football and brain diseases such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Taxpayers are instead bearing the cost.
The NFL denied Pallone’s finding.
“We are reviewing the report but categorically reject any suggestion of improper influence,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said Monday.