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As a physician, I'm somewhat an advocate of patients. How come, before Mike Webster, no NFL player was told or knew that there was an intrinsic risk of brain damage from playing football?

All the NFL players I have examined pathologically, I have not seen one that did not have changes in their brain system with brain damage.

The new disease was named chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and the NFL fervently and repeatedly denied that such a thing had anything to do with the league or its players.

Yes, the concept that blunt-force trauma of the head causes brain damage is a generally accepted principle of medicine. That is why I was so appalled by the NFL doctors who were denying my work.

Concussions have brought the consciousness to the problem, but I think the problem is football-related injuries, period, and the lack of support from the league of those players who have suffered those injuries. The denial factor has been unbelievable. I'm here because I'm a fighter to try to bring attention to this fact.

A child who plays a game of football for one season without any documented concussion - several months after that season, if you subject his brain to sophisticated psychological testing and radiological testing, functional MRIs, there is evidence of brain damage.

It's not just professional athletes and soldiers who are at risk from traumatic brain injury. More than 1.7 million people a year sustain a traumatic brain injury, and about 50,000 of them die each year, according the Centers for Disease Control. There are both emotional and financial costs from these injuries.

There are the medical dangers of football in general caused by head trauma over repetitive hits.

As the National Football League and other pro sports increasingly reckon with the early dementia, mental health issues, suicides and even criminal behavior of former players, the risk of what's known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), is becoming clear.