, a 27-year-old former NFL player who in 2017 hanged himself in prison while serving a life sentence for murder. The disease sparked thousands of individual lawsuits that led to the NFL’s settlement, which already has awarded nearly $790 million to retirees with cognitive impairment or conditions such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.
Moreover, the inability to detect the disease in people such as Morey makes developing effective therapies almost impossible. But with detection, “We’d be able to begin clinical trials for new compounds to be able to treat the disease once it starts — and hopefully even prevent it if we can detect it early on,” says Robert Stern, the director of clinical research for Boston University’s CTE Center and an expert on the disease. “So the next critical step is to diagnose it during life.
Gandy, 63, now believes that his grandmother had Alzheimer’s, which wasn’t considered to be a major disease until the 1970s. Gandy’s mother later was diagnosed with the disease. Before her death in 2018, she became paranoid and absent-minded; nurses often found her on the floor between her wheelchair and bathroom after she would call for assistance, forget that help was on the way, and then unsuccessfully try to reach the toilet herself. “I’m sure that all had an effect on me,” Gandy says.
LEFT: Morey at Lawrenceville football practice in November. RIGHT: Morey with daughter Piper after her hockey game in Princeton in November. Morey was a quick study. He co-chaired the NFL Players Association’s first brain injury committee and recruited scientists to advise it. He read every study he could get his hands on and co-wrote a 90-page report outlining health risks faced by players. During 2011 collective bargaining negotiations between the league and the union, he helped create a return-to-play protocol for concussed players and helped secure more than $300 million in new player health care and research funding.
Five years ago, when Gandy first saw the images of Morey’s brain scans, a single thought went through his mind. That’s it. That’s CTE. The scans were negative for beta-amyloid and positive for p-tau; more important, they were at a higher resolution than Dave Herman’s scans, which meant Gandy could see more clearly that the p-tau in Morey’s brain was concentrated in the areas associated with the disease.
You voluntarily play a sport for fun and for many, a lot of money? No one has ever said it doesn't come with consequences? Just like the soldier that keeps re-upping for different reasons but the potential consequences are known!