Free Republic

NEW YORK - The NFL hopes to conduct pre-training camp neurological tests on players to determine susceptibility to concussions. Commissioner Roger Goodell said Thursday during a meeting with sports editors that the league's medical committee has been working on a way to implement mandatory tests, perhaps as early as this summer when training camps open. That comes after a session at March's league meetings in Arizona in which officials and coaches agreed that head injuries need the closest monitoring. "At no time should competitive issues override medical issues," Goodell said he told the coaches. "Safety comes first." The issue of...

Terri Schiavo got her day in court--or rather her years in court--but that time was mostly spent on tugs of war over states' rights, separation of powers, and legal precedents, issues utterly irrelevant to her medical condition. And so she departs this world not in peace but in bitter turmoil among those she loved and with lingering uncertainty as to her state of mind. Her last in-depth neurological evaluation was back in 2002. At that time her parents, and the two doctors the court allowed them to choose, believed she had some minimal level of consciousness that enabled her to...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects some 400,000 Americans and is the most common neurological disorder diagnosed in young adults. MS affects eyesight, mobility, bladder and bowel control, and causes chronic pain and dizziness. A quarter of those diagnosed with MS may actually have a benign form, meaning they won't have any symptoms for at least 10 years. Currently, however, there is no method of determining who has this benign form. The result: Many people, diagnosed with MS, are taking medication they don't yet need, with all the attendant side-effects, as well as suffering from excessive anxiety. There is also no way...