Contact sports will be gone in a generation: US doctor predicts
Concussion risks from games like rugby too high, says the doctor who first described CTE
Dr Bennet Omalu, the US pathologist who first described chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in American footballers, has predicted contact sports such as rugby union will die out in a generation.
He said the sports as rugby league, rugby union, American football and Australian Rules would fall out of favour, rather than be banned, owing to their concussion risks.
Dr Omalu, a physician and forensic pathologist, discovered the abnormal build-up of tau protein in the brain of deceased footballer Mike Webster during an autopsy in 2002.
His discovery led to further research on the impact of concussion in contact sports, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation payouts for the US National Football League.
