Top NFL Official Admits Link Between Football And Brain Disease For First Time

NFL Senior Vice President of Health and Safety Policy Jeff Miller speaks during an NFL health and safety news conference.

David J. Phillip / AP

A top NFL official for the first time on Monday publicly admitted that there is a link between football and degenerative brain disease.

The NFL’s senior vice president for health and safety, Jeff Miller, was asked by Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois if there was a link between the sport and brain diseases like chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

“The answer to that question is certainly yes,” Miller said at a roundtable discussion on concussions hosted by the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Miller’s statement is a shift from the NFL’s previous stance that science had not established a conclusive link. Miller, though, pointed to the research of Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at Boston University School of Medicine, who found 90 of 94 former NFL players studied had CTE.

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