The San Jose Mercury-News reported this week that the NFL's political action committee has given thousands of dollars to members of a Congressional committee currently reviewing concussion research.
Called the Gridiron PAC, the committee has given nearly $300,000 in campaign contributions to 41 of the 54 members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committe, which began formal hearings last week on league safety issues, including concussions.
That's according to a Berkeley, Calif.- based nonprofit group, MapLight, which has analyzed campaign finance data since 2008.
MapLight found that since 2008, Gridiron PAC has given $292,000 to members of the energy and commerce committee, a number accounting for 17 percent of its campaign contributions over that time.
Rep. Fred Upton (R, Michigan), the energy and commerce committee chair, announced in December that the group would conduct a broad review of concussion research this year, and roundtable discussions began on Capitol Hill last week.
It was in front of the Subcommittee on Oversights and Investigations that a member of the NFL publicly acknowledged, for the first time, that there is a link between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. NFL vice president for health and safety policy Jeff Miller made the acknowledgement.
Gridiron PAC gave $25,000 to Upton and $8500 to Rep. Frank Pallone (D, New Jersey), the committee's ranking member. It also gave $1500 to Rep. Tim Murphy (D, Pennsylvania), who heads the oversights and investigations subcomittee.
It hasn't been a great week for the NFL and concussion news; on Tuesday, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said it's "absurd" to think there's enough data to establish a link between head trauma and the development of CTE, and on Thursday, the New York Times published a report exposing major flaws in the NFL's concussion research (the NFL predictably tried to poke holes in the Times' reporting via two online responses).
