I decided the most fitting issue to relate to the Kaepernick story would be the link between CTE and football. I don't particularly even watch football, but I have known enough people that played when they were in high school. I learned about this issue from the show Adam Ruins Everything, and I would recommend the show in general to anyone. It is a show about using facts and statistics to challenge conventional thinking on a wide range of topics. The link that I am posting is quite credible because it not only lists the sources used, but also has them as links that you can just click on to learn more or see where the argument came from. The general idea is that even hits to the head that don't cause concussions still cause CTE (which if you are unfamiliar, is a degenerative brain disease). That means even just harmless looking tackles in youth football can be harmful if they are tackling at all. Most people say "just get better helmets", but that will not work. The problem is because of the space between the brain and the skull, not the skull and the blow. Many famous former players won't even let their kids play. To get rid of CTE, the game of football will need to change how it is played drastically.
http://www.trutv.com/shows/adam-ruins-everything/blog/adams-sources/adam-ruins-football.html
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| "My grandson knows he's not allowed to play football. And knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have played either. " --Harry Carson, former NFL player |
The profile I am choosing to respond to is Lydia Emery. She talked about how hard it was for her to get all the way to becoming a doctor. Women at that time had a hard time being able to go to school at all. She even says that "it was the goodness of [her] father that he decided [she] could live in town and go to high school." She also had people telling her that she should go into nursing, and she responded that she would "rather be a doctor". Her determination to prove that she could become a doctor was very inspiring. There are still many jobs that still thought to be for just men, and not to bring up politics, but it has taken until 2016 for a woman to be a major party presidential candidate. I think that Lydia's policy to keep her prices the same as in the 1940s sounds nice and helpful, but has a definite down side. It is one thing for her to not want to make a profit, but equipment and supplies cost money. She may have been giving nearly free healthcare, but perhaps at the cost of good quality treatments and diagnoses.
Your activism issue is of importance that I do not think a lot of people are aware of. People do not realize the harm that contact sports, such as football, could have or be. I think that high schools and middle schools need to educate others of the risks and they need to educate the parents themselves and do tests. I also like your profile on Emery. She was determined to be a doctor even despite the gender complications that came and how uncommon it was for women to become doctors. She did not care though. She did what she wanted to do and became what she wanted to do. I do think her treatments were good quality though because she genuinely cared about the people she was treating and the job that she was doing.
ReplyDeleteI think this activism issue is very important. Most of these injuries are new discoveries because the field of research. this is definitely something that should be given attention so that individuals can be prepared and prevent the side effects that occur.
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