Truth Doesn't Have a Side

by Bennet Omalu

  For years, I could only guess as to why this had happened. After all, there was nothing new in the third paper—no new, groundbreaking revelations. I had done that with the first paper. The third reinforced what I had written before. No longer was CTE an abstract scientific proposition. Three cases mark a trend, to say nothing of the many more cases I had to back it up beyond the first three.

  I believe the editor may have been pressured to reject that paper, and I believe I know who may have pressured him. By 2008, when this rejection took place, it seemed that one or several journals of medicine had become the marketing and positioning pitch of the National Football League. There is a line in the movie Concussion that sums this up perfectly: “The NFL now owns neuroscience. Who knew?” At the time my third paper was rejected, Neurosurgery published a paper by the NFL research team concluding that NFL players are at lower risk of concussions because they have such strong necks.3 This was followed by a study concluding that new and emerging helmet models could reduce the risk of serious concussions to such a degree that NFL concussions will rarely, if ever, transition to more serious brain injury.4 They reached this conclusion by studying rats, not football players.

  After Neurosurgery rejected my third paper, I sent it to other scientific journals. All turned me down as well. By now the word was out: I was dangerous, and my research should not be trusted. The rejections drove me to my knees in prayer. As the old saying goes, when a door closes in your face, God must have opened a window for you somewhere. My window had to lie outside of the establishment network of medical journals. My thoughts turned to a smaller journal for which I had done some work as a reviewer in the past. I contacted the editor and asked her if she would consider publishing my third paper. She agreed to take a look. After reading it, she had one question: Why did anyone pass on this?

  A short time later, “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in a National League Football Player: Case Report and Emerging Medico-Legal Practice Questions” appeared in the Journal of Forensic Nursing.5 Since I had changed publications, I removed Part 3 from the title. I also presented Mike Webster’s and Terry Long’s cases and compared them to that of Andre Waters. The paper explored emerging symptoms they all shared—symptoms I thought were the defining signs of CTE. The paper came out in early 2010. To me, the truth had prevailed.

  Or had it? After the third paper was rejected by Neurosurgery, one of my potential coauthors for that paper called me. “Bennet, I don’t know what has happened to you since you moved to California. Your first two papers were sound, but this one is a mess.” I dropped him as a coauthor. I later discovered he had close ties to the NFL. Another potential coauthor, whom I had also dropped, later went on national television and questioned my competence, even though this individual held a PhD, not a medical degree. Some of my African-American friends who saw the interview called later and were very angry about some of the language he had used. I wondered how a person who was not a medical doctor could determine the competence of a medical doctor. I later discovered he had become an NFL consultant.

  • • • •

  I had begun to despair that the history of CTE, which was already in the process of being rewritten, would soon exclude me completely. The danger is that those who rewrote the history could also rewrite the truth that lies beneath it. I discovered CTE in an American football player only because I was an outsider whose thinking about that sport—and all contact sports—did not conform to the accepted ideas within the culture of this country. Because of this, my eyes looked for what others had not.

  And what I could see is that football is not safe for the brain, and it cannot be made safe for the brain. Period. Others will tell you that we can make football safer with the right precautions and with new concussion protocols. Saying we can make football safer is no different from saying we can make a safer cigarette. Both statements are equally absurd, but when the public hears an expert say the league is taking steps to make football safer, their fears are alleviated. Everyone can then tune out the crazy Nigerian and keep watching and playing like usual. The one rewriting the history of CTE can then claim that “yes, the game caused harm to players in the past, but that is all in the past.” There is nothing to worry about today, even though nothing has changed with the game. The dangers are not just in the past, but they are in the present and the future. I knew all of this was at stake, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I presented myself to God and asked Him to guide me in defense of the truth. Let Your truth prevail, I prayed. Thankfully, God heard me.

  In 2009, a brilliant and kind journalist named Jeanne Marie Laskas called me. She explained that she was doing a feature article for GQ magazine about football. As she began to research topics on which to focus, she discovered the growing crisis about brain trauma and CTE. Jeanne Marie went to Boston and interviewed many of the people who were now analyzing brains of deceased players for signs of the disease. In her research, she had discovered my story of how I discovered CTE in Mike Webster’s brain. When she brought up my name, she heard things like, “His role is overblown,” “Omalu is not to be trusted,” and “He’s not doing this kind of work anymore. We don’t know where he is now or what he is doing.”

  The people she interviewed did not know where I was, but she decided to find me and discover the truth about me for herself. The result was a beautiful article called “Bennet Omalu, Concussions and the NFL: How One Doctor Changed Football Forever.”6 For the first time my story was told. At the time Jeanne Marie wrote the article, I had discovered eleven cases of CTE. The NFL and those connected to it might continue to dismiss me, but the truth had now been told. The fact that the truth is plain for all to see does not mean others will not continue to try to deny it. But I did not have to try to defend myself any longer. The truth had been told. The truth will defend itself.

  But God was not finished answering my prayers for Him to defend the truth. Not long after the GQ article ran, my phone rang. I do not typically answer my phone when I do not recognize the number, but on this day, I noticed the call came from outside the United States. My curiosity was piqued. I took the call.

  The man on the other end was very excited that I answered. He could barely get the words out as he said, “I am lying on the beach in Australia, and I just read the article about you. Why hasn’t Hollywood turned your story into a movie?”

  I almost laughed at the thought. Why would Hollywood want to make a movie about me?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Omalu Goes Hollywood

  For a story to go from magazine article to feature film takes more than a call from someone who knows someone in Hollywood. After the call from the man on the Australian beach, I started to wonder if my story of how I discovered CTE could really be adapted into a movie. I called Jeanne Marie Laskas, who had written the GQ article, and asked what she thought of the idea. Like me, she loved it, but she cautioned me to be careful with whomever I would be entrusting the film rights to my life. She introduced me to a man named David Wolthoff. David proved to be another angel sent by God into my life. Over the next few years, we walked together down a very long, arduous, and convoluted road that reminded me, once more, that God works all things out in the fullness of His time.

  After a long conversation with David, I signed over the rights to my life story to him, and he started shopping it immediately. David had many meetings with studio after studio. Nothing came of it until Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios showed interest. I drove down to Los Angeles for a meeting with a couple of Harpo executives, which went really well. A short time later, they bought the options. My excitement dwindled as nothing happened for a long while. I kept doing my job, and David kept after Harpo to move forward. Eventually, they approached Peter Landesman, a journalist-turned-screenwriter, about possibly writing a script. He flew out to California to meet me. The two of us spent a day together. He also visited my home and met my family. After Peter’s visit, my hopes were high. I thought we were on the cusp of the film becomin
g a reality—and then . . . nothing. As I was beginning to learn, there are a world of obstacles that must be overcome to go from story idea to feature film.

  A couple more years passed. David kept aggressively pushing my story to anyone and everyone in Hollywood who would listen to him. Every now and then, he sent me an email or called to reassure me he had not given up. I continued doing research into CTE and brain trauma in my garage laboratory, while also teaming up with Dr. Julian Bailes, Bob Fitzsimmons, and another colleague and friend of mine, Jennifer Hammers, on joint efforts. I followed up the publication of my third paper with a fourth, titled “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in a Professional American Wrestler,” namely, Chris Benoit. Like the third paper, the fourth was also published in the Journal of Forensic Nursing.1 I also wrote a paper exploring the link between CTE and suicide, which appeared in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology.2

  My next paper came out in 2011 in Neurosurgical Focus.3 It focused on CTE in an Iraqi war veteran with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) who had committed suicide. In 2010, I had discovered CTE in a sixty-one-year-old Vietnam War veteran who died suddenly. Because the symptoms of PTSD and CTE overlap in several areas, I wondered if much of what is diagnosed as PTSD in the military may have its roots in brain trauma. If not, I suspected the two might make each other worse. That is what led me to the case of a twenty-seven-year-old honorably discharged Marine who had suffered head trauma both while serving in Iraq and through recreational sports, specifically football and hockey. Prior to his death, he exhibited symptoms very much like those of the football players I had examined, including memory lapses, mood swings, extreme headaches with dizziness, and social withdrawal. My examination of his brain found the same telltale patterns of tau proteins across his brain: CTE.

  That same year, 2011, I was back on the pages of Neurosurgery with a paper titled “Emerging Histomorphologic Phenotypes of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in American Athletes.”4 Neurosurgery actually invited me, through Dr. Julian Bailes, to submit a new paper. I was shocked when Julian called with the news. However, my shock disappeared when he told me that Dr. Apuzzo was no longer the editor. He had been replaced by Dr. Nelson Oyesiku, a fellow Nigerian. Nigeria may have a reputation as a corrupt country politically, but it produces lots of high achievers. I am very proud of my heritage.

  In writing this paper, my coauthors and I transitioned from “football players” to “athletes,” because those who participate in all contact sports—most especially high-impact, high-contact sports—are at risk of brain trauma and therefore CTE. This includes those who play football, ice hockey, wrestling, boxing, mixed martial arts, and rugby. Lacrosse and soccer players are also at risk, due to incidental contact and trauma, as well as headers. Applying our research to all athletes in contact sports widened the scope of our research while also letting me talk about more than football. To be honest, by this point I had grown weary of football and the NFL. I compared my findings in the eleven cases of CTE diagnosis. After I submitted the paper, I was asked to remove a handful of statements and paragraphs. Reviewers complained about some of my methods, contending that they deviated from the norm in CTE research. I found it odd that a “norm” had emerged in such a new field, one that did not exist before September 2002.

  Definitive diagnosis of CTE can only be done postmortem, while only presumptive diagnosis can be done in the living. Presumptive diagnoses are based on symptoms. After death, it is too late, as every family member I’ve ever had to tell that their loved one suffered from CTE has told me. This problem became very personal one day when I received a call from Tia McNeill.

  Tia contacted me because she did not know where else to turn. Her husband, Fred, had played twelve seasons in the National Football League. After his career ended, he went to law school, graduated, and passed the bar. Tia and Fred had two sons. Life was good. But then Fred began to forget things. He had trouble concentrating. Then came the headaches. He could not focus or stay on task, to such a degree that he lost his partnership at the law firm where he worked. Gradually his personality began to change. The easygoing, calm family man blew up at his kids and exhibited bouts of anger. He began making poor decisions, which resulted in money problems. The McNeills went bankrupt, losing their house. They separated not long after.

  Listening to Tia pour out her heart to me, I felt sick to my stomach for her. I had heard variations of her story too many times and it always ended the same way. During her conversation, I finished sentences for her as she described Fred’s symptoms. Tia was amazed. “Wow, how did you know?” she said over and over. I knew because of Mike Webster’s family’s stories and Terry Long’s family’s stories—and on and on and on.

  A half hour after Tia called, she finally paused and said, “What do you think, Dr. Omalu?”

  I told her the truth. “You know what? I would bet my life that your husband has CTE.”

  “What can we do to help him?” she asked.

  That is the most difficult question anyone can ask me, because, honestly, there is nothing anyone can do to fix this problem. That is why we must find a cure. And the first step toward finding a cure is to be able to diagnose the disease definitively in a living patient beyond doing so symptomatically.

  Like I have always done in my life, I do what I can as a person, in spite of what society thinks or what others think. Through the leadership of Julian Bailes and Bob Fitzsimmons, we identified a radiological marker for tau and amyloid proteins called FDDNP that was discovered at the University of California, Los Angeles. We formed a corporation called Taumark in order to purchase the intellectual property license on FDDNP so that no other group—the NFL, for instance—could purchase it and tuck it away. With the control we have on the intellectual property, Taumark raised money and carried out radiological scans of the brains of five retired NFL players, including Fred McNeill. The tests experimentally identified CTE in their brains. Since then, we have scanned many more athletes and military veterans and actually discovered the “blast-variant” form of CTE in military veterans diagnosed with PTSD.

  A couple of years after administering the Taumark test on Fred McNeill, he passed away. I performed the autopsy on his brain and confirmed the FDDNP findings. Not only did CTE shorten his life, but it also robbed him and his family of his true self over the last twenty years of his life. His would be the very first time CTE was identified in the brain of a living patient and confirmed when he died. That does not mean the issue of definitive diagnosis in the living has been solved by Taumark. Many years of expensive tests and clinical trials still lie before us before FDDNP may be approved by the FDA as a probable diagnostic tool for CTE and other dementias like Alzheimer’s disease.

  • • • •

  Working with the McNeills gave me hope that I was making a difference. That hope was dashed not long after. When Junior Seau, yet another great retired NFL player, committed suicide in 2012, I was invited to assist with the autopsy. I removed his brain and spinal cord from his body and processed, prepared, and packaged them for analysis and transport with me on the plane. As I was about to leave for the airport, Junior Seau’s son called the medical examiner’s office and called me all types of names no man deserves to be called. He said I should not get anywhere close to his father’s body. This was the same person who had given me verbal consent the previous night to examine his father’s brain. Apparently some people had misinformed him about Bennet Omalu and fed him lies. Junior Seau’s brain was taken from me and sent to the NIH. NIH doctors analyzed the brain and sent histologic sections of the brain across the country to a panel of neuropathologists to confirm what I believed: Junior Seau suffered from CTE. It should surprise no one that the NIH did not include me on the panel of neuropathologists who conducted the tests. What did I do wrong?

  • • • •

  As all of this went on, David Wolthoff continued shopping my story around Hollywood. One day, he took it to a beautiful Moroccan-American woman named
Amal Baggar. She shared it with her boss, Giannina Scott, and Giannina showed it to her husband, Ridley Scott. The two of them had just watched the brilliant PBS documentary on the discovery of CTE, League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis, by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru. Both the documentary and the book by the same name do a wonderful job of exposing the ways in which the NFL went to any lengths necessary to cover up the truth about brain trauma and football. The filmmakers interviewed me several times for the project, and part of my story is told in the book and documentary.

  I believe the Holy Spirit touched Ridley Scott, together with his wife, through the documentary. They reached out to David, and by God’s grace, Harpo Studios released its option and the Scotts took possession of it. They took the story to Sony Pictures, and the studio was immediately on board. All of a sudden, we had a deal. After waiting years for something to happen, we were in business in a matter of weeks after the Scotts came on board.

  As God would have it, Ridley and Giannina reached out to Peter Landesman to write a script. They had no idea that Harpo Studios had approached him several years earlier. Some might call this a coincidence; I called it the handiwork of God. Peter later told me that when Ridley called him, he asked, “Do you know about Bennet Omalu?”

  Peter laughed. “What do you mean do I know about him? I know him extremely well. I’ve been in his home and spent time with his family.” I guess that sealed it. Peter was the man for the job of writing the script. God answered my prayers and put everything in place in His perfect timing. To me, the movie was simply a miracle.

  When work began on the script, Peter invited me to come down to Hollywood to meet with him for a few days at Ridley Scott’s production company, Scott Free. For three straight days, I sat in a conference room with a team that included Peter, Jeanne Marie Laskas, Amal Baggar, and David Wolthoff as I poured out every detail of my life’s story. We started as early as 7:00 a.m. and went as late at 10:00 p.m. Everyone in the room asked me deeply penetrating questions about why I did what I did. I soon realized I no longer had any secrets. My whole life was about to become public knowledge, but I did not care, if in sharing my story, even one person might be helped.