FA-BACKED DEMENTIA STUDY HIT BY CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST CLAIMS LEAVING FAMILIES FRUSTRATED
Families of former footballers with dementia have hit out over ‘unconscionable’ delays in deciding their industrial disease application amid concerns over potential conflicts of interest.
It comes as the funder of a £500,000 Football Association-backed study into heading and cognitive function revealed disillusionment at discovering that three of the co-authors have been on the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council while conducting the research.
The philanthropist James Drake was unaware until recently that Professors Neil Pearce, Damien McElvenny and John Cherrie, who are among the researchers for the ‘Heading Study’ that he funded, were also on the IIAC group deciding if footballers suffering from neurodegenerative disease should be entitled to additional financial support.
Another co-author of the Heading Study, which had been expected to deliver its findings in 2021, is the Rugby Football Union’s medical director Simon Kemp. The RFU and the FA are both currently the subject of legal action regarding their handling of brain injuries.
“I am disillusioned that three co-authors of the much delayed football Heading Study funded by The Drake Foundation are or have been recent members of the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council and not declared it in the paper awaiting peer review,” said Drake.
“A crucial application to have dementia in football acknowledged as an industrial disease has been lodged with the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council since 2020. So impartiality among those overseeing the Heading Study is essential.”
There is also concern that a group of neuroscientists who were previously listed among the co-investigators for the research are not now among the co-authors for the draft paper.
The IIAC stressed that the three co-authors, whose names have appeared on the published IIAC minutes, declared their potential conflicts of interests at meetings as required and it was seen as no cause for concern.
Although not directly involved in the Heading Study, the FA had actively encouraged former players to take part and the 199 participants have included the current England manager Gareth Southgate.
This research was specifically cited to The Telegraph by the IIAC back in January 2020 as families prepared to make their application for neurodegenerative disease in football.
To become a prescribed industrial illness, and so entitle sufferers to a statutory benefit, people who work in a particular job need to be more than twice as likely to develop a particular disease. A landmark 2019 study by the University of Glasgow of almost 8,000 players found that former professionals were 3.5 times more likely to die of brain disease than the wider population, including a five-fold increased risk of Alzheimer’s and a four-fold risk of motor neurone disease.
Italian professional footballers were previously also found to be seven times more likely to develop motor neurone disease while scientists from Stirling University had found an instant link between heading and decreased brain function.
Neuropathologists, including Prof Willie Stewart who oversaw the Glasgow study, have also begun identifying chronic traumatic encephalopathy – a type of dementia associated with head impacts – in the donated brains of increasing numbers of former professional players.
Dr Judith Gates, with the support of Dawn Astle, whose respective husband and father died of dementia after long football careers, first wrote to the IIAC in February 2020.
The IIAC said that the issue was on the agenda for the Research Working Group in March 2020, then chaired by Prof Pearce, but that it could typically take up to two years for an investigation.
Prof Pearce is understood to have left the IIAC in 2021. Prof McElvenny is first listed among the IIAC members in the minutes of January 2022 while Prof Cherrie has been among the members since before the 2020 football application was lodged.
Dr Gates said that she provided supporting evidence for the request and that there were then exchanges, either asking for more information, or indicating that the IIAC would also focus on other contact sports or consider specific neurodegenerative diseases.
“The goal posts changed repeatedly,” Dr Gates, the founder of Head Safe Football, told The Telegraph. “Throughout the four long years since my initial request, I assumed that the IIAC was making unbiased decisions free from any possible personal conflicts of interest.
“It is disturbing to find out that the chair of the IIAC research committee at the time of my request was himself involved in ongoing research on the topic.
“I sincerely hope that any desire to complete this research prior to considering my request did not lead to the unconscionable delay in proceeding. In the meantime many ex-footballers have died without the benefit of much-needed financial support from the IIAC to which they may have been entitled.”
A draft version of the Heading Study has found “no overall association … between heading and/or other impacts to the head and cognitive function” and is now being shared ahead of peer review with other experts.
Although this version, which is on the MedRxiv server (and to which Drake has referred), does not mention the three co-authors’ IIAC link in its ‘conflict of interest statement’, Prof Pearce stressed that the paper was also being submitted to an academic journal.
“I have made a competing interests declaration covering the issue you raise … for the journal that will be reviewing the paper, and all such statements will be published with the paper,” he told the Telegraph, adding that these “declarations are made by each author” separate from the main manuscript “which seems to be what you are looking at”.
The IIAC, which is funded by the Department for Work and Pensions, stressed that its work was “completely independent” and “very different” to the research programmes of its individual members.
“I do not consider that involvement in the Header Study would cause bias in IIAC’s evaluation of evidence on neurodegenerative disease in sports people,” said IIAC chair Dr Lesley Rushton.
“We have also been contacted by other sports bodies and decided at an early stage to include a wider range of sports. After initial exploration of the literature, IIAC decided to focus on several individual neurodegenerative diseases. One study is generally insufficient for IIAC to draw any conclusions.”
A spokesperson for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where Prof Pearce works and which is one of the institutions leading the Heading Study, said: “It’s common for established academic researchers or clinicians to serve terms on government advisory committees such as the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council.
“These committees seek reputable, independent scientific and medical experts due to their level of specialist knowledge and involvement in relevant and current research.
“Experts across institutions work together to reach a consensus on the best scientific evidence available at the time, and the government then uses this evidence to help inform its decision-making.”
2024-04-23T14:57:12Z dg43tfdfdgfd