Posted on 05/18/2014 11:14:08 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
President Obama will bring athletes, coaches, academics and parents to the White House later this month for a summit on youth sports safety and the dangers of concussions, an administration official said Thursday.
"As both a parent and an avid sports fan, the president loves and appreciates the role that sports play in the lives of young people, and his administration is committed to helping ensure that children continue to be active and play sports safely," the official said in a statement.
At the forum, the president will argue for a "team approach" to preventing and treating concussions, the White House said, with hopes of raising awareness of how to identify, treat and prevent concussions among young athletes. Obama will also call for additional research into the field of sports-related concussions, with the hopes of developing ways to better avoid such injuries.
The concussion forum was first reported by The Washington Post.
The president told The New Yorker earlier this year that he'd be reticent to allow his son, if he had one, play professional football because of the risk of concussions. More than 4,500 former NFL players have sued the league over its handling of concussions, which doctors say can be associated with permanent memory loss and behavioral changes.
Concussions have also been linked to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive degenerative brain disease.
“I would not let my son play pro football,” Obama told the magazine's editor, David Remnick, a former sportswriter. “But, I mean, you wrote a lot about boxing, right? We’re sort of in the same realm.”
Still, the president also said current NFL players “know what they’re doing” and understood the impact that concussions could have on their long-term health.
“At this point, there’s a little bit of caveat emptor,” Obama said. “These guys, they know what they’re doing. They know what they’re buying into. It is no longer a secret. It’s sort of the feeling I have about smokers, you know?”
The NFL agreed to a $765 million settlement with attorneys representing the former players last summer, under which it did not admit any liability or that brain injuries were the result of playing football.
A federal judge has not yet approved the deal over concerns the payout, which would be split among former players and medical researchers, would not be enough.
This guy will do just about anything to keep from having to do his job...
This guy will do just about anything to keep from having to do his job...
Good grief. What’s next, after they’ve thrown everybody out of work and our currency has been devalued almost 50%….how to raise rabbits for food?
Maybe Joe Biden can hold a summit on how many chocolate chips should be in a chocolate chip cookie.
(((
Please don’t give Slow Joe any ideas.
Obama has no focus, he jumps from whatever is today’s headline to whatever comes up another day, none of which are a national security or survival matter.
***
Do you really believe that Obamugabe actually sets his own agenda. He attends to whatever the real president tells him to do. And, apparently, Valerie has her reasons for having him appear at this ridiculous meeting.
Meanwhile, Boko Haram and AQ are running wild in Africa, Putin is running wild in formerly occupied territory, the Assad hereditary dicatorship and its Iranian and other terrorist and jihadist allies continues its mass murdering, Iran’s working 24/7 to build nuclear weapons it plans to use...
It’s weird that Zero is looking into this — it has nothing to do with either homosexuality or climate change.
OTOH, he’s spent his entire time in office attacking the only country in the entire Middle East which guarantees gay rights and which until recently made no contribution to hydrocarbon production.
I don't understand why Obama - who seems to have ZERO interest in this county - ever became President in the first place...
They should have used a hockey goalie mask.
They forgot the protection for his face.
Thanks for the ping!
Barack Obama won because he ran against two of the worst candidates you could imagine. First he beat Hillary, which absolutely nobody can stand. Then he beat John McCain, who can't even get Republicans to vote for him.
Good points - plus he had the ‘free’ press in his pocket.
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